As Delhi went to polls on February 5, 2025, the incumbent Aam Aadmi Party may have just fought its biggest battle in its little over a decade of existence. Confronted with the proverbial 10-year-old itch of the electorate, the Arvind Kejriwal-led organisation had three mammoth challenges.
One, it had to overcome the increasing impression that AAP isn’t the corruption-free party that it claimed to be. Two, it faced widespread criticisms across classes over Delhi’s crumbling infrastructure, falling sanitation standards, and a poorer welfare delivery system than earlier in Kejriwal’s second term, as his party struggled to hold its flock together amidst back-to-back jailing of its top leaders.
Three, it had to somehow win its voter base all over again, as the constant tussle between the L-G and Delhi government’s over administrative powers had led to a widespread perception that the AAP, in spite of its best intentions and a pro-poor welfare model, may not be able to deliver.
By pivoting its primary campaign from Hindutva to one that doubled down on AAP-like welfare delivery model, the BJP presented itself as a better alternative than the Kejriwal government for the urban poor. Additionally, the BJP had poached a range of leaders from AAP in the run-up to the elections, all of whom represented one or other dominant community in the national capital.
Exits of party leaders hit AAP hard
The exits of Jat leader Kailash Gahlot or Dalit leaders like Raaj Kumar Anand and Sandeep Valmiki who joined the BJP, or even Rajendra Pal Gautam who joined the Congress sent strongly negative signals to communities that had supported the AAP in previous elections.
By fielding Gujjar leader Ramesh Bidhuri against chief minister Atishi or Jat leader Parvesh Verma against Kejriwal, the saffron party went all out to consolidate its position in Delhi.
Yet, as the electoral curtains came down in Delhi, the AAP can’t be faulted for not trying hard enough. As it faced a solid pushback towards what opposition parties labelled as its “politics of freebies” without any long-term goals for Delhi’s fundamental problems, the AAP went back to the basics, and, in fact, ended up framing the electoral narrative in Delhi.
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By handing over the reins to Atishi immediately after serving a short-prison term and deciding to renew its connection with the electorate, Kejriwal attained a moral high ground. As early as August, 2024, he decided against holding big rallies like the BJP and the Congress, began to bring together the party’s rank and file, and chalked out a multi-layered door-to-door campaign, corner meetings, and social and religious events.
The feedback from the ground helped it to plug holes in its political messaging, note complaints against incumbent legislators, build a strong campaign that attempted to evoke sympathy against its alleged targeting, and helped it rebrand its welfare agenda with a new set of promises. It dropped 20 sitting MLAs, rearranged its campaign with changing electoral dynamics, and projected a collective, educated leadership to counter BJP’s aggressive canvassing.
Kejriwal’s effort to style himself as the only leader to care about Delhi’s people
Sensing that its focus on urban poor has polarised the electorate along class lines, Kejriwal also tried to bring the middle classes on board by addressing concerns like pollution, drinking water, roads, and employment, as polling came close.
In the last few days of the campaign, the AAP made a bizarre charge against the BJP government in Haryana, alleging that it was sending ammonia-poisoned drinking water from river Yamuna to Delhi – something that the AAP spotted on time and prevented from flowing into Delhi. The truth of the matter aside, the episode played out sharply in the run-up to the polls. Acting on the complaints of the BJP and the Congress, the Election Commission of India sought an explanation from the AAP in a terse letter.
It helped Kejriwal, as he pitched himself as the only leader to care about Delhi’s people, while his opponents that included even the ECI, were bothered only about political gains. As he battled charges of spreading panic in Delhi, he went on to challenge top BJP and Congress leaders to drink the allegedly poisoned water that he bottled and had them sent to union home minister Amit Shah, Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva, Haryana chief minister Nayab Singh Saini, and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi.
Kejriwal ensured that he and his party remained at the centre of the electoral narrative, every time he saw it slipping away from him. Even as prime minister Narendra Modi labelled his party as “aapda” (disaster) and charged him for spending public money on building a lavish house for himself, Kejriwal diverted attention away towards his renewed set of welfare promises and attempted to instil fear of a possible anti-poor BJP government in Delhi.
The BJP that had been working hard on the ground has expanded its strength to a large extent by employing a range of tactics. But AAP never missed a chance to hammer down the point that it remained faceless, and lacked a strong local leader.
Both the BJP and the Congress could never escape the electoral trap that Kejriwal had laid out for them – and that could be the biggest takeaway for opposition parties to compete with the dominant BJP in elections.
Lack of ideological anchor comes back to haunt AAP
Yet, after 10 years of being in power, the AAP may have also hit a roadblock as it emerges from the 2025 assembly elections. Its lack of an ideological anchor – something that it proudly flaunted in its initial days – has come back to haunt it. As its welfare-delivery model got choked by the BJP-led Centre, its leaders and cadre struggled to restrict the voters’ drift.
Unlike the BJP, whose Hindutva appeal often lets its supporters ignore its governance failures, the AAP had nothing to hang on to. Similarly, Rahul Gandhi’s initiatives like the Bharat Jodo Yatra, his consistent attacks on the RSS, or even his invocations of constitutional nationalism – as opposed to Hindu nationalism – has brought a large section of minorities and Dalits under the Congress umbrella across India, despite his party leaders’ confused approach to the principles.
The Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), too, could beat anti-incumbency in Tamil Nadu by unequivocally endorsing Dravidian politics. The Samajwadi Party showed signs of re-emergence in Uttar Pradesh during the Lok Sabha polls by rebranding and committing its Mandal politics.
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However, the AAP’s failure to lend ideological heft to its pro-poor politics has troubled the party both in Delhi and Punjab, making it look desperate when pushed against a wall.
By shying away from taking an ethical position, and remaining conspicuously mute during the anti-CAA movement and the 2020 communal riots AAP alienated a large section of Muslims. Similarly, a section of Dalits moved away from AAP after its leaders failed to resolve some of their persistent problems like irregular salaries for municipal workers, frequent flooding in their bastis, and impermanent nature of work for sanitation workers.
That distress showed when Kejriwal pitched his own welfare schemes as mere “savings of Rs 25,000 per month” for common people and pleaded with them to re-elect the AAP for transactional reasons.
He also misled the electorate by spreading fear that if a BJP government is elected, slums will be demolished and his popular schemes will be ended, without any evidence to back such claims. The saffron party, in fact, has promised an expansive list of such deliverables in its manifesto and campaign. Its leaders have categorically said that all the current welfare schemes will be continued and implemented effectively.
The signs of despair in the AAP, as it could not build any emotive appeal for itself, were palpable. It showed a lack of confidence in its own unique development model that spends 40% of its government’s budget on public education and health care. As much as AAP revelled in accentuating honest governance and effective delivery in politics, it felt the heat when its own failures were held accountable. Irrespective of the outcome, the 2025 assembly elections in Delhi exposed the limits of an ideology-free imagination of politics like no other in the recent past.
