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Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s party appears poised to win Delhi state elections, a victory that would end a 27-year drought, according to voter exit polls.
If the projections hold, the Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) is set to end the reformist Aam Aadmi party’s (AAP) nearly decade-long rule in the national capital region and reclaim the Delhi assembly.
A composite “poll of polls” placed the pro-Hindu BJP party at 43 seats, with AAP trailing at 26. The secular Congress, led by Rahul Gandhi, was projected to win just one seat in a state that was once a stronghold for it. Some individual polls, though, suggested a much tighter contest and the AAP insisted the exit polls were wrong.
“Exit polls have never been right about the AAP. Every time, the AAP has stormed to power with a massive mandate, and this time will be no different,” AAP spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar said. In 2020, the AAP won 62 of the 70 assembly seats with the BJP capturing the remaining eight.
A defeat for the AAP would mark a massive setback for the anti-establishment party and its leader, Arvind Kejriwal, an activist whose anti-corruption drive helped sweep him to power in 2015 in Delhi and who has been seeking to extend the party’s presence nationally.
Kejriwal founded the party in 2012, presenting it as a crusade for the aam aadmi, or common man, and promising to improve basic services from health and electricity to water and education.
Kejriwal, whose party’s symbol is a broom, has been a vociferous critic of Modi, who has been equally scathing in return. The prime minister campaigned hard against the AAP ahead of the Delhi election, speaking at many rallies.
The BJP’s forecast win would be another fillip for the party after a relatively underwhelming performance in the May 2024 general elections, where it fell short of winning an outright majority in parliament. It formed a government with coalition partners.
Now, after scoring victories in the states of Maharashtra and Haryana since the national elections, the BJP’s fortunes could be decisively on the upswing. The official results are due on Saturday.
During the campaign, all three parties aggressively wooed voters with promises of freebies – from free water and electricity to cash incentives.
The AAP’s governance model is based on popular public welfare schemes that won wide support. The AAP also promoted itself as a “squeaky clean” political alternative to the BJP and Congress.
But its second term was thrown into turmoil by corruption allegations that saw Kejriwal, who was chief minister, and his two closest ministers jailed for long stretches.
The arrests stemmed from a so-called liquor scam in which the AAP was accused of accepting kickbacks in a now-scrapped excise policy. India’s central government investigation agencies alleged liquor businesses funnelled bribes to AAP leaders.
AAP denied the charges and said the BJP was waging a political vendetta. But the allegations, along with the construction of a lavish chief minister’s residence that the BJP dubbed the Sheeshmahal – Palace of Mirrors – dented the party’s standing with voters.
