First setback for Modi as AAP sweeps to victory in Delhi

Exit polls had already been optimistic about the AAP’s performance in last weekend's election, but the final results announced trumped even the best of those predictions.

Supporters of the Aam Aadmi Party, or Common Man’s Party, celebrate their party’s victory in New Delhi on February 10, 2015. Tsering Topgyal/AP Photo

NEW DELHI // The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) romped to a landslide victory in the Delhi assembly elections, winning a second chance to govern the capital and puncturing the aura around prime minister Narendra Modi’s party since it swept national elections in May.

Exit polls had already been optimistic about the AAP’s performance in last Saturday’s election, but the results announced on Tuesday trumped even the best of those predictions.

The anti-corruption party led by Arvind Kejriwal won 66 out of the assembly’s 70 seats, while Mr Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party took only three seats.

The Congress party — India’s oldest party, which ruled Delhi between 1998 and 2013 — didn’t win any seats, sparking protests by party workers.

In contrast, celebrations erupted outside AAP’s headquarters barely an hour after results began trickling in at 8am on Tuesday. Party volunteers sang and danced around the gates, watching the results live on a giant television as AAP’s vote count climbed upwards.

Overall, the AAP won about 54 per cent of the votes — a dramatic increase from the December 2013 assembly elections, when it garnered 29.5 per cent. On that occasion, the AAP took 28 seats compared to the BJP’s 31, and was able to form a coalition government only with the support of the Congress party, which won eight seats.

However, after merely 49 days into his term, Mr Kejriwal resigned as chief minister, citing claims that the Congress and the BJP were thwarting his government's legislative efforts.

Afterwards, Delhi was administered by its lieutenant governor, as it waited for fresh polls for more than a year.

The hype generated around the AAP after the December 2013 election might have damaged the party, Yogendra Yadav, a senior AAP leader, told the NDTV news channel on Tuesday. He cited the party's rushed decision making, during its brief term, as one consequence of that hype.

Mr Yadav called the results a wave of support for AAP. “It isn’t just the underclass that is voting for AAP, as people thought. It’s the middle classes as well,” he said.

Apart from the promise to root out corruption, the party will also deliver on its promises of free electricity and water, “and of addressing the problems of those who remain unsung in Delhi”, Mr Yadav said.

Although Mr Modi, who led his party to a massive win in parliamentary elections last summer and in three state elections since, campaigned vigorously during the Delhi polls, the BJP insisted that the defeat was no reflection upon the prime minister.

“In this election, it was a referendum on Arvind Kejriwal,” GVL Narasimha Rao, a BJP spokesperson, said. “It was a referendum of AAP’s 49 days in office and its performance. People felt they should be given a chance.”

On Twitter, Mr Modi said: “Spoke to @ArvindKejriwal & congratulated him on the win. Assured him Centre’s complete support in the development of Delhi.”

Mr Yadav felt that Mr Modi had made a mistake by involving himself so deeply in the Delhi polls.

“This is a Delhi-specific result,” he said. “I do not think that the days of the BJP are over. But the juggernaut seems to be halted, at least for the time being.”

Pradip Datta, a professor of political science at Delhi University, called the results “quite amazing”.

“For a party that was down and out this time last year, to recover the confidence of its volunteers and the people, is quite something,” he said.

Mr Datta ascribed the BJP's defeat in part to Mr Modi's performance in the nine months since he became prime minister. "There's a perception that he hasn't delivered on his promises, and that he is pro-rich and somewhat self-obsessed," Mr Datta told The National.

The “unabashed anti-minorityism” of the BJP’s Hindu nationalist allies also did not help the party, Mr Datta added.

“That knocks out the minority vote for them completely, which is 15 or 20 per cent of the population,” he said. “And by other voters also, it’s seen as a distraction.”

For months now, the AAP has held “mohalla sabhas”, or neighbourhood meets, in which citizens have been able to air their concerns and influence the drafting of the party’s manifesto.

What the AAP also did to help boost its support, Mr Datta said, was to organise its volunteers well and to concentrate on covering local issues, which matter more in such elections than in parliamentary polls.