In Delhi, AAP Ends BJP's 15-Year Control Over Civic Body: 10 Facts

The AAP has won 126 seats, hitting the majority mark in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD), and unseating an entrenched BJP. It is leading on 10 more, taking its number possible to 136. The BJP has won 97 seats so far, as per the 1.30pm update. It is leading on some more, thus possibly crossing 100 — a decent performance after 15 years of continuous hold on the civic body. Congress has won seven seats and leading on three more.

An aggregate of four exit polls had predicted AAP victory in 155 wards; 84 seats for BJP and seven for Congress. The BJP had won the last MCD polls, in 2017, with 181 of the 272 seats then; AAP was a distant second with 48 and Congress third with 30. 

The AAP office saw massive celebrations with the dhol and kids dressed as Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. The office had kept balloons and celebratory posters ready since morning. 

AAP leaders had gone into a huddle as the counting threw up a contest much tighter than the AAP sweep predicted by exit polls. Manish Sisodia and Raghav Chadha rushed to AAP boss Arvind Kejriwal's residence. They were joined by Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann. 

Though the BJP has not formed the Delhi state government in the past 24 years, its control over MCD remained strong through Congress and AAP governments. Even when the AAP won a record 67 of 70 seats in the 2015 assembly polls, the BJP, two years later, retained the MCD. 

The AAP and BJP, both currently controlling parts of Delhi's administration through state and central governments, saw this is a prestige battle. These were the first civic elections after the MCD — divided into three, area-wise, around 10 years ago — was reunified and the wards redrawn after the latest term of the BJP ended early this year. Over 1,300 candidates were in the contest. 

In the campaign, the BJP had gone all-out — as it usually does — getting PM Narendra Modi to hand over keys of some slum rehab flats. It deployed union ministers and chief ministers too. Local leaders were a distant second fiddle for both main parties.

The AAP prepared since early last year. It kept its pitch directly mounted on the garbage issue: "We've improved things under the state, now let us take care of sanitation too." The slogan "Kejriwal's government, Kejriwal's corporator" rivalled the BJP's similar pitch of "Modi's double engine" — both building on their top leaders' faces. 

The BJP made promises of housing, and pressed on corruption charges on several AAP ministers. The Congress used these to take digs at the AAP. But Mr Kejriwal said his "shaandaar" (glorious) work as chief minister won't be defeated by "bogus charges" and "misuse of central agencies".

The Congress was hoping to get some pockets of influence at least, but has lost further ground. It's still rebuilding in Delhi after a decline began in 2014, and then came the death of Sheila Dikshit in 2019. The party's focus on macro-politics of ideology — evident in Rahul Gandhi's 'Bharat Jodo Yatra' that's in Rajasthan now — meant the civic body elections weren't high on its priority list.