Ruling In Surrounding States, Delhi Win To Cement BJP's Dominance

If the early leads hold and the BJP manages to break into AAP’s fortress, Delhi will be the latest among a handful of opposition-ruled states to turn saffron and also cement the position of the ruling party at the Centre in the region. The BJP is already in power in the states surrounding the national capital, including Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan.

While the BJP has been ruling in Uttar Pradesh since 2017, it won a decisive mandate in the face of strong headwinds in Haryana – where it had been in power for two terms – last year and wrested power from the Congress in Rajasthan in 2023. 

Despite having governments, on its own or in alliance with its partners, in at least 20 states and a Union Territory, being out of power in Delhi since 1998 has rankled the BJP. This was exacerbated by its humiliating losses in the national capital in 2015 and 2020, where it managed to win just three and eight of Delhi’s 70 seats, respectively, while the AAP swept 67 and 62.

If the numbers are in line with the leads, the BJP will have avenged those defeats by attaining a spectacular victory after running an aggressive campaign in which it successfully demolished AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal’s image of being an anti-corruption crusader by painting him as corrupt.