In a stunning, albeit predicted, turn of events, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) led by Arvind Kejriwal has been ousted from power in the 2025 Delhi Assembly elections. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has claimed a resounding victory, securing the more than majority of 45 seats out of 70. Meanwhile, AAP managed only 21 seats, with a narrow lead in one other.
The results marked the end of Kejriwal’s dominance in the capital after two successive electoral wins in 2015 and 2020. Despite a high-profile campaign, Kejriwal’s strategies failed to resonate with the voters, leading to a historic defeat for AAP.
Arvind Kejriwal’s grand move to resign as Delhi’s chief minister in September 2024 was supposed to make him look like the hero standing up for integrity, but it ended up feeling more like a desperate attempt to save face.
The Kejriwal of 2015 and 2020 dazzled voters with a positive message of change, transparency, and governance? In 2025, however, that Kejriwal was nowhere to be found. Instead, Delhi got a campaign that focused almost exclusively on trashing the BJP and worse yet, its former INDIA bloc ally, the Congress.
Kejriwal, desperate to shift the narrative away from corruption accusations against his own party, turned his attention to name-calling, calling the BJP a “Gali Galauj Party.” But by doing this, he forgot to talk about what AAP actually had to offer. The result? Voters didn’t want to hear endless insults—they wanted solutions, and Kejriwal just didn’t deliver.
The AAP supremo also tried to woo the middle class, unveiling a manifesto packed with demands—seven in total—that he wanted the Centre to address. He accused the BJP and Congress of ignoring this vital segment of society. But here’s the kicker: his manifesto didn’t clearly outline what he would do for them. It was more a wish list aimed at the Centre.
Meanwhile, the Centre’s own budgetary relief for the middle class ended up being more appealing than Kejriwal’s vague “demands.”
One thing Kejriwal didn’t shy away from in 2025 was confrontation. And while it worked in the past, this time it backfired. From accusing the Delhi Police and Election Commission of conspiring with the BJP to targeting the Chief Election Commissioner as a puppet after his post-retirement job, Kejriwal’s politics of constant aggression added fuel to the already burning campaign.
To make things worse, his constant sniping at the Congress created a greater divide, allowing the BJP to thrive as a unified opposition. Voters usually aren’t interested in fighting; they want stability and forward-looking policies.
Kejriwal’s high-profile loss in New Delhi to BJP’s Parvesh Verma by over 4,000 votes was a particularly hard blow. Manish Sisodia, the former deputy chief minister, lost Jangpura by a slim margin of 675 votes to BJP’s Tarvinder Singh Marwah. This wasn’t just a defeat—it was a political rout.
