In Delhi, AAP’s Huge Win, Ends BJP’s 15-Year Control Over Civic Body

The AAP won a prestige victory in an election that turned out to be closer than anticipated, and the BJP did not lose as much as was anticipated. The Congress barely succeeded in maintaining any relevance. The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP has defeated the firmly established BJP in the prestige contest for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). It has gained 129 members, three more than is necessary for a majority in the 250-member House, and is in the lead for another six, bringing its total to perhaps 135 seats.

After 15 years of uninterrupted control, the BJP, which conducted the campaign with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s face, has won 97 seats so far and appears poised to surpass 100. Congress has gained seven seats and is currently ahead on three.Arvind Kejriwal costumed children and a dhol band played at the AAP office during the large celebrations. Since the morning, the workplace had kept balloons and festive posters on hand.

As the counting revealed a contest that was considerably closer than the AAP sweep projected by exit polls, AAP leaders had gathered in a meeting. Raghav Chadha and Manish Sisodia hurried to AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal’s home. Bhagwant Mann, the chief minister of Punjab, joined them. Despite not having constituted the Delhi state government in the previous 24 years, the BJP’s hold on the MCD remained solid under Congress and AAP administrations. Even though the AAP won a record 67 out of 70 seats in the 2015 assembly elections, the BJP kept control of the MCD two years later.

Both the AAP and the BJP, who presently hold power over various aspects of Delhi’s administration through the state and federal governments, see this as a contest for prestige. These were the first municipal elections since the MCD, which had been split into three roughly ten years prior in terms of area, was reunified and the wards redrew after the most recent term of the BJP came to an end in early this year.

The competition featured more than 1,300 applicants.The BJP went all-out throughout the campaign, as it normally does, to persuade PM Narendra Modi to hand over the keys to certain slum rehab apartments. Both chief ministers and union ministers were sent out. Local leaders played a minor role for both major parties.

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