Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta 
Can the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) upset the incumbent Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) cart in Delhi? This is the question in the minds of a number of observers in the run-up to the Delhi assembly elections, scheduled on February 5.
Prime minister Narendra Modi has already thrown his hat in the ring by labelling the AAP as “aapda”, a disaster, and its 10-year tenure “aapda kaal”, a period of disaster. His party has used alleged overspending in renovation works of the chief minister’s residence as its primary campaign tool to portray the incumbent AAP government as corrupt.
AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal has used the last six months to consolidate his ground among the urban poor through mohalla meetings, highlighted his welfare schemes, and kept the BJP on its toes by holding it accountable for deteriorating law and order situation in the national capital. The Delhi police functions under the Union home ministry headed by Amit Shah.
The Congress meanwhile is trying hard to recover from its collapse after Sheila Dikshit’s loss in 2013, and is putting all its energy to match AAP’s welfare promises while projecting itself as the only secular opposition to the BJP.
The enduring Kejriwal
Yet, what sets AAP apart from the two parties is Kejriwal, who remains popular and has led his party from the front. The BJP has struggled to find a leader, who, in their own right, can match the charisma of Madan Lal Khurana or even Sushma Swaraj. Its plot to parachute Kiran Bedi as the chief ministerial candidate in 2015 backfired, while Harsh Vardhan was no match for Kejriwal and his team in 2020. Similarly, there is no one in the Congress who can fill Sheila Dikshit’s big shoes. Ajay Maken or Sandeep Dikshit, are at best loyal Congressmen, but are viewed with a factional lens even within the party.
Ever since Delhi’s legislative assembly was formed in 1993, the BJP has struggled to come to power in the national capital. Barring its first tenure in which party stalwart Madan Lal Khurana led the Delhi government, the saffron party has never managed to come on top of other parties. The Congress under the leadership of Sheila Dikshit won three successive elections from 1998 until AAP first rose to power, with a short-lived minority government first in 2013 and then wiping out all its contenders with over 60 seats in the 70-member assembly in the next two polls.
The lack of stewardship in Delhi has once again pushed Modi to lead the BJP, even as his party has deployed multiple strategies to offset its weaknesses. It understands that Delhi’s electorate has swung towards AAP in assembly polls despite favouring Modi in the Lok Sabha elections. Moreover, while the BJP has had an effective political narrative based on corruption and dynasticism against the Congress, it hasn’t found its feet against a baggage-free AAP. In fact, Kejriwal has outwitted the BJP each time it has tried to corner the AAP. The BJP had no answer to Kejriwal’s recent resignation from the position of chief minister, even as it continues to scamper against AAP’s campaign pitch that its government is run by padhe-likhe log (educated people).
In such political circumstances, Modi will highlight his welfare work and corruption allegations that central agencies are probing against AAP leaders, while BJP will likely focus all attention to polarise the electorate along faith and caste lines.
The saffron party has tactically fielded former MP Parvesh Verma against Kejriwal in the New Delhi seat. Verma has shot to fame as one of the anti-Muslim icons in the Sangh parivar pantheon since the anti-CAA protests, and is known for his rabidly communal remarks. Similarly, it has placed former MP Ramesh Bidhuri against chief minister Atishi in the Kalkaji seat. Like Verma, Bidhuri is also known for his communal remarks, the most dastardly being his 2023 confrontation with Danish Ali in Lok Sabha where he called the latter a “bharwa” (pimp), “katwa” (a pejorative word for circumcised), “mullah atankwadi” and “mullah ugrawadi”.
Around the 2020 elections, the BJP used the anti-CAA protests to run a vilifying campaign against Muslims, labelling the community as “traitors” and “anti-nationals” and carried out a number of marches to polarise the electorate along religious lines. Although AAP cleverly stayed away from responding to the campaign, Delhi saw its worst-ever communal riots soon after the elections.
Polarising tactics continue
In the run-up to the 2025 polls, the BJP has thrown in a new layer to its polarising tactics. Having understood that a significant section of urban poor, mostly people from Bihar and eastern UP known as Purvanchalis, still support the AAP, it has attempted to reach out to Punjabis, Jats and Gujjars of Delhi. Purvanchalis form 40% of Delhi’s electorate, while Punjabis make up 20% and Jats and Gujjars together form another 12% of the voters. The union home minister Amit Shah’s recent visit to the Rakabganj Gurudwara, the seat of Sikh politics in Delhi, was part of such an outreach. Similarly, fielding Verma, a Jat, and Bidhuri, a Gujjar, as prominent faces in the assembly polls is also a part of such thinking.
The saffron party is thus relying on Brand Modi, caste and faith-based polarisation, and anti-incumbency sentiment to upstage the AAP in absence of a leader who can steer the party. But, more significantly, it will desperately hope for the Congress to turn the usually bi-polar elections into a triangular contest.
The X factor in the upcoming Delhi polls will be Congress’s performance. Despite a lack of leadership, the BJP has retained its nearly 33% vote share since 2013. Its loyal voters have kept the party in good stead. However, the Congress’s stark collapse over the last decade has elevated the AAP into a nearly invincible position.
From 24.55% votes in 2013, the Congress’s vote share saw a free fall to 9.65% in 2015 and an abysmal 4.26% in 2020. Nearly all of its losses translated to gains for the AAP. Riding on its energetic canvassing questioning status-quoist politics, the AAP earned 29.49% votes in 2013, finishing second to the BJP in its very first elections, and went on to fatten itself subsequently. It cornered over half of the total Delhi’s votes in 2015 (54.34% with 67 seats) and 2020 (53.57% with 62 seats). The BJP, on the other hand, increased its vote share from 32.19% in 2015 to 38.51% 2020 but still finished a distant second to the AAP.
Precisely for such factors, the BJP has gone all out against the AAP government but has been strategically silent on the Congress. Barely has the BJP found itself in such a quandary where it hopes for the revival of its biggest political rival. If the Congress improves its vote share even by a few notches, the BJP will have a chance to beat the AAP. If the grand old party keeps dwelling in the shadows, power in Delhi will continue to dodge the BJP like before.
This piece was first published on The India Cable – a premium newsletter from The Wire & Galileo Ideas – and has been updated and republished here. To subscribe to The India Cable, click here.