New Delhi: With the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) winning 48 out of the 70 seats and poised to form the government in Delhi after nearly 27 years, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) finished second in 13 seats where Congress candidates received more votes than the AAP’s margin of defeat.
The Congress ruled Delhi for three consecutive terms till 2013 but have been in the doldrums since then. They scored a blank for the third time running, but have left an imprint on these elections.
Key AAP leaders – Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia, and Saurabh Bharadwaj – all finished second in their constituencies, with Congress candidates polling more votes than their margins of defeat. In the New Delhi constituency, former chief minister Kejriwal lost by a narrow margin of 4,089 votes, while Congress’s Sandeep Dikshit, former two-term Lok Sabha MP and son of former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, polled 4,568 votes.
Also read: Backstory: Post Major AAPset, Understanding the Decline of a Mediatised Political Party
In Jangpura, Sisodia lost by a razor-thin margin of 675 votes, with senior Congress leader and former Delhi mayor Farhad Suri polling 7,350 votes. In Greater Kailash, Bharadwaj lost by 3,188 votes, while Congress candidate Garvit Singhvi received 6,711 votes.
In addition to these 13 seats, the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) also affected the AAP’s chances in Mustafabad, a North East Delhi constituency that has been communally sensitive since the 2020 riots. Former AAP leader Tahir Hussain, who faces charges in the riots case, contested on an AIMIM ticket and finished third with 33,474 votes – significantly more than the losing margin (17,578) of AAP candidate Adeel Ahmed Khan.
This trend was picked up by INDIA bloc leaders Sanjay Raut from the Shiv Sena (UBT) and J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah, who both lamented that the AAP and the Congress should have fought the BJP together.
Raut said that if the Congress and the AAP had formed an alliance, the outcome might have been very different. He emphasised that both parties share the same political opponent – the BJP – but unfortunately chose to compete separately rather than join forces.
“The early trends show a sharp competition. Had Congress and AAP been together, the results may have been different. The political opponent of AAP and Congress is BJP. Both of them fought to keep BJP from coming to power, but they fought individually. If they had been together then BJP’s defeat must have been confirmed in the first hour (of counting),” Raut said.
Abdullah, however, was cheekily blunt in manner though. Quoting this trend, he posted on the platform X a meme of a sage with the messag,e “Fight each other relentlessly until you’ve destroyed one another completely.”
Aur lado aapas mein!!! https://t.co/f3wbM1DYxk pic.twitter.com/8Yu9WK4k0c
— Omar Abdullah (@OmarAbdullah) February 8, 2025
The Hindu also reported that INDIA bloc leaders expressed strong disappointment over the Delhi poll results, with Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI(M)) leader T.P. Ramakrishnan directly blaming the Congress’s lack of support for the alliance’s ineffective functioning, while Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) leader P.K. Kunhalikutty emphasised that the BJP’s victory could have been prevented if the Opposition had remained united.
Kunhalikutty further noted that the BJP typically capitalises on differences among secular parties, and called for the INDIA bloc to overcome state-specific challenges to protect the constitution, suggesting that all alliance members should collectively evaluate the results rather than blame any single party.
Also read: BJP Trounces AAP in Delhi As Sharp Class Divisions Come to The Fore
The AAP announced after the Lok Sabha elections last year that it would be fighting the Delhi Assembly elections independently despite contesting the Lok Sabha elections in alliance with the Congress.
“Earlier as well, we made it clear that the alliance with the Congress was only for the general election, and we fought it together with honesty. For the state Assembly elections, there is no need for the INDIA alliance. We will fight the polls with the help of the people of Delhi, and we will win,” said AAP Delhi state convenor Gopal Rai at that time.