Fireworks at noon, a local band playing deafening music, an electric crowd garbed in saffron roaring “Jai Shri Ram”.
That was the scene today at the BJP office in Pandit Pant Marg in central Delhi. Ten rounds of counting had ended, and the BJP was poised to sweep the assembly polls for the first time in 27 years.
And sweep it did, winning 48 out of 70 seats and its vote share jumping 10.15 percent, from 38.7 percent in 2020 to 45.85 percent today which is, incidentally, the highest vote share bagged by the party in Delhi in its history. The AAP, meanwhile, moved from winning 62 seats in the assembly in 2020 to just 22, and its vote share fell by 11.5 percent.
The Congress, surprising nobody, did not win a single seat for the third time in a row. Cold comfort is, perhaps, that its vote share increased by two percent.
But how did the BJP script its victory? This especially when it won 26 more seats even though their vote shares aren’t remarkably different – the BJP’s is 45.85 percent and the AAP’s is 43.57 percent.
Biswajit Mohanty, an associate professor at the department of political science at Deshbandhu College, said the BJP’s 10 percent increase in vote share is unusual since the BJP didn’t really witness a “wave” in Delhi.
“This time the voter turnout has also come down,” he added, “so we need to find out who did not vote.” Delhi’s voter turnout this year was 60.44 percent as against 62.82 percent in the 2020 assembly polls.
It’s also true that the BJP’s thumping victory can’t be attributed to any sort of loud communal campaign. It had none. Delhi only saw a handful of rallies by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP did not present a chief minister face.
So, what was its strategy?
First, the numbers
Of the 48 seats the BJP won, 41 had been won by the AAP in previous polls. The BJP’s vote share increased tremendously in these seats too. For instance, while BJP’s Chandan Kumar Chaudhary won Sangam Vihar by just 344 votes, the party’s vote share in this seat increased by 36 percent.
According to Newslaundry’s analysis, the party’s vote share increased by between 20 and 30 percent in seven seats: Rajouri Garden, Badli, Madipur, Palam, New Delhi, Malviya Nagar and Mangolpuri. Its vote share went up by 20-30 percent in 18 seats.
Sweetening the victory is the fact that the BJP, which has always struggled to win in Delhi’s 12 reserved seats, won four this year: Bawana, Madipur, Trilokpuri and Mangolpuri. Candidate Mohan Singh Bishth scripted a victory in the Muslim-dominated Mustafabad, perhaps indicating the Muslim vote was split here between the AAP, AIMIM and Congress.
Analysing the party’s strategy
1) 27 cells for a targeted campaign
The BJP’s victory in Delhi didn’t happen overnight. In 2021, a year before the MCD polls, it formed 27 cells to run a targeted campaign catering to all sections of voters based on caste, religion and profession. It set up a Purvanchali cell to cater to migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and separate cells for migrants from Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh and Northeast India. It also had cells for chartered accountants, lawyers and intellectuals, and even a Sansikritik cell for performing artists.
2) Non-star campaigners
Delhi, like every other election, saw the BJP’s big names descend for campaigns, such as Narendra Modi, Yogi Adityanath and Amit Shah. But it was the party’s non-star campaigners who seemed to have formed personal connections with voters in small public meetings.
For instance, Rajya Sabha MPs like Sumitra Balmik and Umesh Nath from Madhya Pradesh, and Lok Sabha MP Anook Balmiki from Hathras held Jaati Samman Sammelans to interact with Valmiki voters. Rajasthan’s deputy CM Prem Chand Bairwa held public interactions with members of the Bairwa community. During these interactions, the leaders would tell voters that the BJP had given adequate representation to their respective communities even as they pointed out that popular Dalit leaders like Rajendra Pal Gautam and Raj Anand had quit the AAP.
It was a clever move by the BJP especially since CSDS data from previous assembly polls shows that the party is least popular amongst Delhi’s Scheduled Caste voters. The BJP therefore made a concerted attempt to invite leaders to interact with all 36 SC sub-castes in Delhi.
3) Special wing for voters in JJ clusters
Delhi has about 15 lakh voters who live in slums and JJ clusters. They form approximately 10 percent of the electorate and are the AAP’s core voter base. In the 2015 and 2020 assembly polls, about 80 percent of them voted for the AAP.
It’s a weak voting section for the BJP and so, the party formed a special wing called the Jhuggi Jhopri Abhiyan. It was headed by Vishnu Mittal, general secretary of the Delhi BJP, and its main agenda was to help the BJP shed its “anti-poor” image and win the trust of voters who worried the BJP would demolish slums if it came to power.
Under this wing, every slum was appointed a vistarak – a local resident who was directly in touch with the Delhi BJP to organise weekly events and give feedback. These events primarily included baithaks and chai pe charcha to chat about central government welfare schemes like Ayushman Bharat. Months before the party even released its election manifesto, slum dwellers were told that the BJP wouldn’t stop the AAP’s welfare schemes if it came to power.
The BJP also curated other activities like intra-slum race competitions for children and Raksha Bandhan celebrations, where local women tied rakhis on BJP workers. It also celebrated Bhai Dooj with local women and read the Hanuman Chalisa at temples on Tuesdays.
Manish Chaddha, the BJP’s mandal adhyaksh from Paharganj, told Newslaundry, “A dedicated wing for slum dwellers was much needed because in the last assembly elections we failed to establish a connection with them. Since they are a strong voter base of AAP, district-level BJP leaders would usually ignore them during their campaigning.”
The BJP also curated other activities like intra-slum race competitions for children and Raksha Bandhan celebrations, where local women tied rakhis on BJP workers. It also celebrated Bhai Dooj with local women and read the Hanuman Chalisa at temples on Tuesdays.
4) The LG factor
The AAP’s previous victory in Delhi came on the back of its promise of “good governance”.
Now, in the last five years, the BJP-led central government passed a handful of laws that aimed at making the Lieutenant Governor more powerful in Delhi. For instance, the National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill handed executive powers over to the LG from the state’s legislative assembly. It mandated that “government” in Delhi will refer to the LG in the context of all laws passed in Delhi, and the opinion of the LG will be mandatory before any executive action is taken.
Mohanty said the LG becoming the “sole arbitrator of any policy” led to a “kind of misgovernance in Delhi”. And this worked to the BJP’s advantage.
“For every policy, the state government had to go to the LG. It kind of paralysed the state government. So even if they head the MCD, the AAP does not have much power to carry out any developmental work,” he said. “It cost the AAP heavily. The BJP used it to send a message at the local level that AAP is not functioning properly, and created a perception that even if AAP stays in power, they will not be able to carry a lot of work in Delhi.”
5) The middle class voter
Mohanty told Newslaundry that in the last five years, there has been a change in Delhi’s demography, with the middle class forming 70 percent of the electorate.
“Increase in their share of the population has contributed to the BJP’s victory. And the slum voters have become less than the middle class. Whatever vote AAP has got from the slum voters is compensated by the middle class’s vote to the BJP,” he explained.
Crucially, the AAP in 2020 had deliberately wooed the middle class; for instance, it promised to regulate school fees in private schools. But as the LG gained more power in the national capital, the AAP “could not take such decisions in its second tenure which led to dissatisfaction of the middle class”, Mohanty said.
He added, “Secondly, the middle class started seeing the AAP as more of a pro-poor party. They believed they were paying taxes, so why should the poor get all the benefits?”
On its part, the BJP very specifically appealed to this section of voters in the 2025 Budget, released days before Delhi voted. It exempted individuals earning up to Rs 12 lakh from paying income tax.
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