Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party won the most seats in the high-stakes election for the legislature in India’s federal capital region, including New Delhi, for the first time in more than two decades.
The BJP won 48 seats in the 70-member assembly that includes India’s capital of 20 million people, ousting the Aam Aadmi Party, or AAP, which ruled New Delhi since 2015. The AAP won 22, according to the election commission.
In a major upset, AAP founder and leader Arvind Kejriwal, and his deputy Manish Sisodia, lost their seats, despite their party having built widespread support through its welfare policies and anti-corruption movement.
Supporters of the BJP, waving party flags and posters of Mr Modi, chanted slogans and danced outside its headquarters in the capital as vote results began trickling with most exit polls predicting the party's win.
Amit Shah, India's powerful Home Affairs Minister and the BJP leader, said his party's victory showed that "people can’t be misled with lies every time”.
“Our victory is a sign of the people’s faith in Prime Minister Modi’s vision of progress,” he added.
More than 60 per cent of the more than 15 million eligible people voted in the local government elections on Wednesday.
Saturday’s victory is being seen as a big boost for the BJP after it failed to secure a majority on its own in last year’s national election but formed the government with coalition partners. It regained some ground by winning two state elections in northern Haryana and western Maharashtra states last year.
Mr Modi’s party slashed income taxes on the salaried middle class, one of its key voting blocs, in the federal budget announced days before the election.
Both Mr Modi and Mr Kejriwal offered to revamp government schools and provide free health services and electricity, along with a monthly stipend of more than 2,000 rupees (about $25) for poor women.
Mr Kejriwal was arrested last year along with two key party leaders on charges of receiving bribes from a liquor distributor. They have rejected the accusations as being part of a political conspiracy.
The Supreme Court allowed the release of Mr Kejriwal and other ministers on bail. Mr Kejriwal later relinquished the chief minister’s post to his most senior party leader, Atishi, who won her seat on Saturday.
Opposition parties widely condemned Mr Kejriwal’s arrest, accusing Mr Modi’s government of misusing federal investigation agencies to harass and weaken political opponents. They pointed to several raids, arrests and corruption investigations of key opposition figures before the national election.
Mr Kejriwal, a former bureaucrat, formed the AAP in 2012 after tapping into public anger over corruption scandals. His pro-poor policies have focused on fixing state-run schools and providing cheap electricity, free health care and buses for women.
The AAP won 62 out of 70 seats in a landslide victory in the previous election in 2020, leaving the BJP with eight and the Congress party, which controlled the Delhi legislature for 15 years after defeating the BJP in 1998, with none.
Mr Modi declared that "development had won" after his party emerged as the frontrunner during the vote count on Saturday.
"We will leave no stone unturned in ensuring the overall development of Delhi and making the lives of residents better," he said in a post on social media.
Mr Kejriwal, one of the key pillars of an opposition block formed ahead of the general elections last year, conceded after losing his seat.
"We accept the verdict and congratulate the BJP," he said in a video statement.
Mr Kejriwal's defeat in his stronghold puts the BJP "back in a very strong position", said Rahul Verma, of the Centre for Policy Research think-tank in New Delhi.
"Now it seems what happened in general elections was a temporary lapse," Mr Verma said. "And it has put AAP in a difficult position going ahead."
Despite hectic weeks-long campaigning, little was said about the capital's crippling air pollution crisis, which smothers the city for months in hazardous fumes.
New Delhi is regularly ranked the worst capital in the world for choking smog, which often surges to as much as 60 times the World Health Organisation's recommended daily maximum.
Years of piecemeal government initiatives have failed to measurably address the problem, with the smog blamed for thousands of premature deaths annually and particularly impacting the health of children and the elderly.
With reporting from agencies.