AAP vs BJP: Largest party in the world lost to the smallest ruling party

It is just 7 years since Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party formed out of the Anna movement and he has beaten the BJP for the second consecutive time in Delhi’s Dangal, claiming to be the world’s largest party. To defeat Kejriwal, BJP had given all its strength, even after this, it could not end its exile of power.

Just seven years ago, the Aam Aadmi Party, led by Arvind Kejriwal, has defeated the BJP, which claims to be the world’s largest party, in Delhi. In this way, BJP’s efforts to end the 22-year exile of power in Delhi were caught. In this way, the exile of BJP has increased by 5 years. The Aam Aadmi Party defeated the BJP for the second time in a row and the BJP could not even cross double digit both times. Aam Aadmi Party’s landslide victory again in Delhi has raised questions on BJP’s strategy.

It has been just seven years since Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party formed out of the Anna movement. It can be said that the political base of the AAP is limited to Delhi and a little bit is in Punjab. At the same time, BJP has more than 12 crore members and currently BJP or its allies are in government in 16 states. In such a situation, BJP had campaigned by all its big leaders to hold the Delhi Sultanate, but could not stop Kejriwal’s Vijay Rath.

BJP could not break the issue of free electricity, water and free travel of women to DTC. Although BJP also made Shaheen Bagh an issue and it also benefited from it, but not so much that it could compete with the Aam Aadmi Party.

Just as it happened to Narendra Modi in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, so did Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi that (no choice) factor worked. The Aam Aadmi Party cleverly explained to Delhi voters that the BJP Does not have any qualified person to replace Kejriwal. During the last six months, the Kejriwal government announced more free things including free travel to women and students in buses and metros. Due to this, Kejriwal’s hold among women became stronger.

The way in which the BJP was aggressive on the Shaheen Bagh issue in Delhi, Muslim voters united in favor of the Aam Aadmi Party, which affected about a dozen seats. At the same time, Kejriwal also adopted the path of soft Hindutva and he recited Hanuman Chalisa. With this, he was successful in preventing the polarization of Hindu votes in favor of BJP.

The central leadership of the BJP fought this election by making it an election of prestige. Under the leadership of Home Minister Amit Shah, the BJP reached the street and tried to compete with the Aam Aadmi Party. In the Delhi elections, PM Modi held two public meetings and Home Minister Amit Shah held about 50 rallies and road shows. Shah also did a door to door campaign. BJP President JP Nadda held 30 general meetings. At the same time, Union Minister Smriti Irani addressed more than 25 rallies. Defense Minister Rajnath Singh addressed 12 rallies and Union Minister Nitin Gadkari addressed 10 rallies.

Talking about the Chief Ministers, BJP’s firebrand leader and UP CM Yogi Adityanath addressed 15 rallies in Delhi. Himachal CM Jairam Thakur, Uttarakhand CM Trivendra Singh Rawat and Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar also held several rallies. Former MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan and former Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis also campaigned for the party in Delhi. Apart from aggressive campaigning by many more ministers and chief ministers, BJP could not cross the double digit mark. In 2015, the BJP won 3 seats, so this time the party could reach 8 seats.

On the other hand, the Aam Aadmi Party got 62 seats and got 54 percent votes in Delhi. BJP’s vote share increased from 32 to 38 as compared to 2015, but it did not increase its seats much. BJP won only 8 seats. Congress could not open its account even in this time elections. The special thing is that the bail was forfeited in 67 seats of Congress.

In fact, the BJP’s strategy was to increase the ten percent vote in Delhi, but it could increase only six and a half percent votes. Had the Congress also performed a little better, the BJP’s path would have been easier, because the Congress could have cut the vote of the Aam Aadmi Party. But all this strategy could not succeed. BJP could not get any benefit from being in power in all three municipal corporations and having all seven Lok Sabha MPs. In four parliamentary constituencies of Delhi, BJP’s account was not even opened.