New Delhi: The assembly polls in Delhi will be held on 5 February, the Election Commission of India announced Tuesday, setting the stage for an electoral showdown between the ruling Aam Aadmi Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party, which has been out of power in the city-state since 1998, having been unseated by Congress that is now fighting for relevance in its former stronghold.
The counting of votes will take place on 8 February.
For AAP—besieged by investigations against its top leadership mounted by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)—retaining power in its home turf is almost an existential necessity. It is Delhi where the India Against Corruption (IAC) movement took shape and morphed into AAP in 2012.
The AAP came under the national arc lights in its very first electoral outing in Delhi in 2013, when it won 28 of the 70 assembly seats in Delhi, dislodging the Congress government led by Sheila Dikshit as the chief minister for three consecutive terms since 1998. Between 1993—when the present administrative structure of Delhi came into place—and 1998, BJP governed the city.
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With Arvind Kejriwal at its front and centre, AAP went on to register thumping victories in the 2015 and 2020 assembly polls in Delhi, winning an overwhelming 67 and 62 seats, respectively. The BJP barely stayed afloat, while the Congress found itself obliterated from the city, struggling to maintain even organisational presence due to the erosion in its voter base.
Even as it remained locked in a bitter tussle with the BJP-led Centre and successive Lieutenant Governors appointed by it, AAP carved out a governance model, which helped it reap political success, hinged on heavy investments in the education sector, subsidies for consumption of water and power, and reforms in healthcare.
However, the last few years tested the limits of AAP’s resilience, with its top leadership—from Kejriwal to former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, to Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh and former health minister Satyendar Jain—getting arrested on charges of corruption. They are now out on bail, no longer holding ministerial positions.
In terms of area, Delhi might be small, but it has always had an outsized importance in national politics. 2025 promises to be no exception. Apart from Delhi, assembly polls are due this year only in Bihar.
For BJP, Delhi is a battle of prestige as the city-state has remained elusive for the party, despite dominance in large parts of the country under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi since 2014.
Both in 2015 and 2020, the BJP lost miserably in Delhi, despite the tailwinds of the national elections that it won so comprehensively in 2014 and 2019. It is another matter that BJP has, in the last three general elections, won all the seven Lok Sabha seats in the capital.
For the upcoming assembly polls, the party is yet again banking on the appeal of Modi, who has, over the last one week, set the BJP’s campaign tone in speeches, while inaugurating a number of major infrastructure projects, including housing for the urban poor, in the city. The AAP, he said, has been an “aapda (disaster)” for Delhi due to its “lack of vision” and “corruption”.
The BJP, however, is not projecting any chief ministerial face in the polls. The AAP senses an advantage on this front as it has made it clear that Kejriwal, who stepped down and made way for Atishi as chief minister due to the stringent bail conditions that made it virtually impossible for him to discharge his duties, will take reins if the AAP returns to power.
The ruling party underlined that promise even in its campaign song—Phir layenge Kejriwal—launched Tuesday, hours before the announcement of the dates of the polls by the ECI. The Delhi elections will also result in the Opposition’s INDIA bloc finding itself considerably frayed due to the decision of the AAP and the Congress—partners in the alliance—contesting separately.
It is not only because of the fact that the allies are fighting solo, but also due to the Congress’s uncharacteristic aggression in taking on the AAP. The Congress, particularly its Delhi unit, is desperate to claw back in what used to be its bastion, leaving no opportunity to attack Kejriwal, going to the extent of calling him “anti-national”.
The Congress high command did intervene to get its Delhi unit to dial down the rhetoric against Kejriwal, but it has also given its go-ahead to the local leaders to fight the polls aggressively.
A decent show in the polls will also boost the party’s morale, which dipped after losses in the Haryana and Maharashtra assembly polls, restoring confidence in the BJP’s post Lok Sabha stride.
Also Read: In the fray with AAP, Congress high command draws red line for Delhi unit—‘don’t speak BJP language’
