Four crucial factors that decided Capital verdict in favour of BJP

Out of power since 1998 in Delhi, the BJP has ended AAP's 11-year rule in the Capital.

Ahead of the Delhi elections, HT listed four factors that would likely decide whether the Aam Admi Party (AAP) came to power for the third consecutive time in Delhi or if the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) would succeed in dislodging it.

BJP national president J P Nadda (left) and BJP Lok Sabha MP Manoj Tiwari congratulate each other after the party won the Delhi assembly elections on Saturday. (Ajay Agarwal/HT Photo)

Here is how those four factors have played out to give a result in favour of the BJP.

AAP’s assembly elections advantage has vanished

Delhi has made a clear distinction between Lok Sabha and assembly elections since 2015. Vote shares show that a section of voters switched from the BJP to the AAP between Lok Sabha elections and assembly elections. This helped the AAP sweep the 2015 and 2020 assembly polls, although the BJP swept the Lok Sabha elections held less than a year earlier.

Not many voters have made such a switch between the 2024 Lok Sabha elections and this year’s assembly elections. The BJP and its allies lost a vote share of 14 and 17 percentage points in the past two assembly elections in Delhi compared to the Lok Sabha elections preceding them. In 2025, they lost a vote share of only around 7 percentage points compared to the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. (See Chart 1)

AAP’s dominant 50% vote share has eroded

One reason why it was difficult to dislodge the AAP in assembly elections was that it managed a vote share of at least 50% in a majority of assembly constituencies (ACs) in Delhi. This means that no amount of consolidation of non-AAP votes could defeat the party. Some voters had to necessarily abandon the party for the AAP to lose. As the first chart shows, this has indeed happened and AAP’s vote share has declined by around 10 percentage points compared to 2020. The AAP has won only 12 ACs with a vote share of 50% or more, compared to 54 and 48 in 2015 and 2020.

To be sure, with some AAP voters likely shifting to BJP, the number of seats won by the BJP with a vote share of 50% or more has increased from 5 in 2020 to 27 in 2025.

However, this does not mean that the 2025 results are just a reversal of the 2020 results in favour of the BJP. The total number of winners in Delhi with a vote share of 50% or more has also decreased: from 53 in 2020 to just 39 in 2025. This is in line with the fact that result is not as one-sided as it was in the last two assembly elections. (See Chart 2)

Spoilers have hurt the AAP this time unlike in the past two assembly elections

With AAP’s vote share dropping below 50% in most ACs, spoilers were likely to be a factor in the seat tally. The results show that the AAP has lost 12 seats to the Congress playing spoiler. In other words, in 12 seats where the AAP finished second, the Congress finished third and had a vote share more than the victory margin of the seat. Moreover, All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen and an independent candidate has also played spoiler for the AAP, and the AAP has played spoiler for the Congress in one seat.

In the AC where an independent candidate played spoiler for AAP (Mehrauli), the Congress also had vote share more than the victory margin although it finished fourth. Therefore, in sum, anti-BJP parties have lost 15 seats playing spoiler to each other.

In 2020, the AAP lost only three seats to spoilers, with the Congress responsible for this in two seats and the Bahujan Samaj Party in one.

To be sure, in purely theoretical terms described above, the Congress can also be said to have played spoiler for the BJP in seven seats in 2025. However, it is unlikely that the people voting for the Congress even when it is not a serious contender would shift to the BJP. (See Chart 3)

It is the rich and middle class who have likely abandoned the AAP

A locality wise analysis of booth-level results by HT at the time of the 2020 elections showed that while the poor overwhelmingly supported the AAP,the party also enjoyed the support of other classes.

In 2025, this class pattern can be checked only by proxy measures (as an analysis in these pages today shows) until booth-level results are published. This proxy measure shows that the rich and the middle class are responsible for the AAP loss more than the poor.

This is also suggested by a simulation of the booth-level results from 2020. A swing of half the voters in planned and regularised localities from the AAP to BJP produces a vote share similar to the actual results. (See Chart 4)