Delhi mandate sees rise in BJP’s vote share from 32.19% to 38.5%

The BJP, which emerged as a distant second to the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the assembly elections, witnessed a notable improvement in their vote share. Tuesday (February 11)’s results show the party bagged 38.5 per cent votes in the national capital, which is six percentage points more than what it received in the 2015 elections.

In comparison, the AAP, which secured a landslide win, held on to the nearly 54 per cent votes it had got in the 2015 Delhi Assembly polls, while the Congress registered its worst-ever performance with its vote share slipping to four per cent. As many as 63 Congress candidates even lost their deposit.

According to Election Commission figures, the Arvind Kejriwal-led party bagged 53.6 per cent votes in the Delhi assembly polls, the results of which were declared on Tuesday. It had bagged 54.34 per cent votes in 2015. According to the trends, the Arvind Kejriwal-led party is expected to win a total of 62 seats in 70-member assembly.

In the Lok Sabha polls held in May last year, the BJP had polled over 56 per cent votes in Delhi, more than the combined vote share of the Congress (22.5 per cent) and the AAP (18.1 per cent), and won all the seven seats. However, in this assembly election, the party only managed to improve its tally of seats from three to eight.

In the first Assembly polls held in Delhi in 1993, the saffron party had bagged 42.82 per cent votes. It secured 34.02 per cent votes in 1998 and 35.22 per cent votes in 2003. It bagged 36.34 per cent votes in 2008, 33.07 per cent votes in 2013 and 32.19 per cent votes in 2015.

However, the worst hit was the Congress with its vote share dipping further to 4.3 per cent. The grand old party was in power in Delhi from 1998 to 2013. In 1993, it had secured 34.48 per cent votes. When it captured power in Delhi in 1998, it had bagged 47.76 per cent votes, followed by 48.13 per cent and 40.31 per cent votes in 2003 and 2008.

In 2013, its vote share fell nearly by half to 24.55 per cent and the party managed to win only eight seats. Its vote share dipped further to 9.65 per cent in 2015 and to 4.27 per cent in 2020. NOTA registered a 0.46-per cent vote share in the Delhi assembly polls while the BSP, which fielded 68 candidates, bagged a mere 0.71 per cent votes.

(With inputs from agencies)

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