The BJP ended its 27-year drought in Delhi with a landslide victory on February 8. As this story was published, the BJP had officially won 44 seats and is leading in four against the AAP’s winning in 21 and leading in one. A simple majority in the 70-seat Delhi assembly is 36.

But beyond the results, the big talking point today is AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal’s loss in the high-stakes New Delhi assembly constituency. He lost by 4,089 votes to BJP’s Parvesh Sahib Singh, who had previously won the West Delhi Lok Sabha seat in 2014 and 2019. In third place is the Congress party’s Sandeep Dikshit, son of former CM Sheila Dikshit.

Singh received 30,088 votes, Kejriwal 25,999 and Dikshit 4,568.

How did the super CM lose to Singh? It was a combination of several factors.

Addition and deletion of voters

In the run-up to the assembly polls, the AAP leadership raised questions on attempts to “manipulate” the voter list by way of deletions and additions in New Delhi. For context, there were 1,46,122 registered voters in the constituency in the 2020 assembly polls; this came down by 37,558 to 1,08,564 voters in 2025. 

In the run-up to the polls, the AAP leadership seemed anxious that the drop in voters would dent the AAP more than other parties. Kejriwal had polled 46,758 votes in 2020 from New Delhi – 20,000 more than his performance today.

Before Delhi voted, Newslaundry had analysed the updated voter list and looked at the booths in New Delhi with the highest deletions. This reporter also visited three booths – Kali Bari Marg, Kendriya Vidyalaya and Goli Marg – where the deletion rate ranged between 53.14 percent and 25 percent. Other booths with high deletion rates included Number 63 in Sarojini Nagar (38 percent) and Number 50 in Sunehri Bagh Lane (25 percent). 

We found that the deletions in Kali Bari Marg and Sunehri Bagh Lane seemed to be predominantly due to demolitions. Residents in both areas lived in jhuggis, a vote bank of the AAP, and were rehabilitated to Narela and Dwaraka.

In Sarojini Nahar, most deleted names belonged to government employees who were moved to other areas due to redevelopment of government quarters. Read our full report here.

It seemed likely that most names deleted were AAP supporters. 

Simultaneously, the BJP had directed its ministers and MPs living in the Lutyens’ zone to get names of their employees added to respective voter lists. Replying to the AAP’s allegation that an unusual number of voters had been added from these residences, the state BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said the new voters were staff. 

So, the analysis of the updated voter list and our on-ground verification show the additions and deletions were not, in fact, suspicious. 

Dikshit’s scathing attack

Another contributor to Kejriwal’s defeat was the entry of Sandeep Dikshit. Kejriwal had defeated Sheila Dikshit from New Delhi in 2013 so it was, in many ways, a match that featured a grudge.

Dikshit polled only 4,568 votes, which is still 1,348 more than in the previous assembly poll when the Congress fielded Romesh Sabharwal. The increase mostly came at the cost of the AAP.

BJP workers knew Dikshit’s gain would be Kejriwal’s loss. But Dikshit’s contribution to Singh’s win was less about votes polled and more about his constant rhetoric against the AAP chief. In multiple interviews, Dikshit punctured Kejriwal’s “kattar imandar”, or honest, image by bringing up the elaborate revamp of Kejriwal’s former official residence. He also talked about how Kejriwal had attacked his mother for installing air conditioners in her official residence. 

In this interview, for instance, he said: “Was the liquor scam to save the country? Was it to save the country to stay in an extravagant bungalow? Was it to save the country when they fought elections with the BJP to defeat the Congress? Tell me one thing that he has done except to build buildings and collect money for himself.”

The media, which had anyway taken to the BJP’s “sheesh mahal” claims, made sure to play up Dikshit’s statements too – he was perhaps the Congress candidate that received the most press this election. The BJP had really pushed the controversy, with models of Kejriwal’s former home taken out on vehicles across Delhi.  

BJP’s outreach to Valmikis and Pahadis

Valmikis are one of the largest communities in New Delhi constituency, totaling around 15,000 voters. Their chief complaint against the AAP was that the party could not regularise jobs in the AAP-governed municipal corporation of Delhi. Another grouse was that the children of safai karamcharis who died during Covid were not given jobs on compassionate grounds.

The BJP seized this opportunity. Candidate Singh attempted to hold a job fair in the area to assuage these woes on January 15, though he called it off after the AAP filed a complaint with the Election Commission. But intent matters – and it came through to voters. 

Additionally, days before polling, Singh announced that the BJP would rename Talkatora Stadium after Maharishi Valmiki because the country “would not progress” without the upliftment of oppressed cases. 

For the Pahadis, which comprise around 10,000 voters in New Delhi, the BJP deployed top leaders from Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, including Uttarakhand CM Pushkar Singh Dhami, to connect with voters from the two states in New Delhi. These voters are mainly government employees.

Budget bonanza

When psephologist Yashwant Deshmukh appeared on India Today on results day, he said one out of four voters were undecided until the last week of voting. 

If this is true, this might be important: Four days before polling, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman presented Budget 2025 and announced that those earning less than Rs 12 lakh will not have to pay income tax. 

Although the EC had directed the central government not to announce schemes for Delhi due to the Model Code of Conduct, this had a huge impact in Kejriwal’s constituency and other seats. Around two-thirds of New Delhi’s voters comprise government employees and middle class voters. This tax bonanza is likely the reason why floating voters – who largely voted for the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls and the AAP in state polls – stayed with the BJP this time. 

First mover and Kejriwal’s absence

Singh, a two-time Lok Sabha MP from West Delhi, wasn’t given a ticket for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. When he was given the assembly ticket from New Delhi, it was largely seen as a climb-down. But BJP sources said it was Singh who had asked to be fielded from the seat, as he knew the prize he’d get for taking down a giant like Kejriwal. He was aware that he’d fight from New Delhi long before the BJP announced its list of candidates. So, for months, he worked on the constituency with a group of dedicated party workers. 

Singh and his wife Swati Singh held a number of small meetings, both public and closed-door, with women and other voting groups. She would regularly attend small bhajan-kirtan gatherings featuring women.

Before the Model Code of Conduct kicked in, he distributed Rs 1,100 to women voters. He even distributed shoes to women after the code kicked in. The AAP alleged he gave away sundry items to the electorate while the Election Commission looked the other way.

Kejriwal, meanwhile, had a disconnect with his voters. In the Valmiki colony on Madir Marg, he faced backlash, both on and off camera, for returning after being away for five years. His workers reportedly faced resistance from the public, some youths waved black flags during AAP campaigns, and women asked him tough questions. 

What also helped Singh was his party’s campaign strategy. The BJP swore by this old adage: if you can’t defeat them, join them. The BJP did join AAP’s freebie bandwagon by promising Rs 2,500 to every woman and promising that it would not discontinue ongoing welfare schemes.

LG squabbles, garbage woes

A factor that contributed to the AAP’s loss in Delhi was the constant slugfest between AAP and Lieutenant Governor VK Saxena, appointed by the central government, on policy paralysis. Newslaundry’s ground reports suggest the average voter was increasingly impatient with the AAP’s argument that Saxena was throwing a spanner in its attempts to do good works.

The BJP also made good use of MP and former AAP leader Swati Maliwal, who attacked Kejriwal on waste management and Yamuna river pollution.

All this combined to leave the former AAP CM where he is today – without a seat in the assembly while his party lost the government. 

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