- By Nidhi Giri
- Tue, 03 Dec 2024 07:44 PM (IST)
- Source:JND
Delhi Election 2025 Update: The political circles in the national capital are abuzz as the 70-member Delhi Assembly is set to go to polls in February 2025, wherein it will see a three-cornered fight between the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress (INC). Candidates from different parties are vying for key constituencies, including the coveted New Delhi seat, currently held by AAP national convener and former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal.
The New Delhi seat has been a stronghold for Kejriwal since 2015, with Congress leader Sheila Dikshit holding it from 1998 to 2013. Dikshit-led Congress was ousted from power in the 2013 Delhi Assembly elections, when AAP emerged as a major player and went on to form the government. Arvind Kejriwal was sworn in as the Delhi chief minister on December 28, 2013.
Kejriwal’s reign was interrupted in 2014, when he stepped down in September, leading to fresh speculations about potential challengers. However, the AAP supremo stormed back to power after fresh Delhi Assembly elections were held in 2015. The Kejriwal-led party won 67 of the 70 seats, reducing BJP to 3 and Congress to 0.
Delhi Election 2020
Arvind Kejriwal was voted back to power with a spectacular landslide victory in the 2020 Delhi Assembly Election as the party won 62 seats in the 70-member House. The party dropped by just five seats and less than a percentage point in vote share from its stellar 2015 showing.
Despite a hard-fought campaign that saw big guns, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah address rallies, the BJP had managed to win only eight seats, five more than its 2015 tally. The Congress failed terribly, unable to open its account again after the 2015 poll debacle.
Past Delhi Elections: BJP, Congress And AAP Vote Share
The AAP secured 53.57 per cent of the vote share, while the BJP got 38.5 per cent and the Congress 4.3 per cent. While AAP's vote share, since its maiden election in 2013, was constantly on the higher side, the number of people voting for Congress decreased significantly in the last decade.
With its surprise performance in 2013, when it got 29 per cent of the total votes polled and won 28 of the 70 seats, AAP dug into Congress' vote bank, pushing the grand old party to third position with 24.5 per cent votes and just eight seats.
In subsequent assembly polls in 2015 and 2020, Congress' vote share further fell to 9.7 per cent and 4.3 per cent, respectively, while AAP won a massive mandate with 54.6 per cent and 53.6 per cent vote share.
Though AAP and Congress toyed with the idea of forming an alliance in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls too, the deliberations between the two parties fell just short of finalising a seat-sharing arrangement. In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, BJP candidates led in 52 of the 70 assembly segments in seven parliamentary constituencies, while the AAP-Congress combined was ahead in the remaining 18.
While BJP improved upon its performance in the 2020 assembly elections, it lost a lot of ground to the INDIA bloc if the results were compared to the 2019 Lok Sabha polls when the saffron party led in 65 assembly segments in a three-cornered fight.
Delhi Election 2025: Candidate List And Probables
Arvind Kejriwal recently clarified that the party will go solo in the upcoming Assembly polls in Delhi, delivering a setback to the opposition INDIA bloc. On November 21, AAP released its first list of 11 candidates for the polls.
The list includes candidates for several key constituencies, such as Chhatarpur, Kiradi, Vishwas Nagar, Rohtash Nagar, Laxmi Nagar, Badarpur, Seelampur, Seemapuri, Ghonda, Karawal Nagar, and Matiala. The AAP has named Brahm Singh Tanwar to contest from Chhatarpur, Anil Jha from Kiradi, Deepak Singla from Vishwas Nagar, Sarita Singh from Rohtash Nagar, BB Tyagi from Laxmi Nagar, Ram Singh Netaji from Badarpur, Chaudhary Zubair Ahmad from Seelampur, Veer Singh Dhingan from Seemapuri, Gaurav Sharma from Ghonda, Manoj Tyagi from Karawal Nagar, and Sumesh Shokeen from Matiala.
Meanwhile, the BJP’s candidate selection process is gaining momentum, with several names being discussed for prominent constituencies. Prominent BJP figures under consideration include national general secretary and former Rajya Sabha MP Dushyant Gautam for Karol Bagh, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva for Kasturba Nagar or Vishwas Nagar, and former Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay for Malviya Nagar.