The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday defeated the Aam Aadmi Party in the Delhi Assembly election.

While the BJP won in 48 constituencies, the Aam Aadmi Party bagged 22 seats, data from the Election Commission showed.

The halfway mark to gain a majority in the 70-member Assembly is 36 seats.

With this, the BJP will return to power in Delhi after 26 years.

While Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal and former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia lost their seats, Chief Minister Atishi won.

Conceding defeat in a video posted on social media, Kejriwal said that the Aam Aadmi Party has accepted the result “with great humility”. The Aam Aadmi Party will not only play the role of a constructive Opposition, but also participate in community service, he said.

Kejriwal added that over the past 10 years, the AAP government in the national capital had carried out a lot of work for the people in areas of education, healthcare, electricity, water, and had tried to improve Delhi’s infrastructure.

The Aam Aadmi Party chief congratulated the BJP and said that he hopes that the Hindutva party will deliver on the promises it had made to the voters.

Also read: How the Congress cost AAP a majority in Delhi

Prime Minister Narendra Modi said that the voters had given the BJP a historic mandate. “Development wins, good governance triumphs,” he said on social media.

Modi added: “It is our guarantee that we will leave no stone unturned in developing Delhi, improving the overall quality of life for the people and ensuring that Delhi has a prime role to play in building a Viksit Bharat.”

BJP leader Amit Shah said that the election result was the beginning of a new era of development and trust in Delhi. “Delhi has taught such a lesson to those who break promises that it will set an example for those who make false promises to the public across the country,” he said on social media.

Commenting on the BJP’s win, party leader Parvesh Verma, who contested against Kejriwal from the New Delhi seat, said that the government that is going to be formed will bring Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s vision to Delhi, ANI reported.

“I give credit for this victory to PM Modi,” he said. “I thank the people of Delhi. This is the victory of PM Modi and the people of Delhi.”

Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva also said that the residents of Delhi had shown faith in the prime minister, ANI reported.

“It is a huge victory for us and the people of Delhi,” he said. “He [Modi] will come to the party headquarters in the evening.”

The polling was held on Wednesday and the provisional voter turnout was 60.4%, according to the Election Commission.

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The Aam Aadmi Party has been in power in the national capital since 2013, except for a year of president’s rule between 2014 and 2015.

In September, Kejriwal stepped down as the chief minister and was replaced by party leader Atishi. Kejriwal said that he will return to the post only after voters have expressed their support for him in the Assembly polls.

Kejriwal’s resignation came a week after he was released on bail in the Delhi liquor policy case. He had been arrested in March ahead of the Lok Sabha election.

In the 2020 polls, the Aam Aadmi Party won 62 seats with a 53.8% vote share. The remaining eight seats were won by the BJP, which secured 38.7% of the votes. With a 4.3% vote share, the Congress failed to win any seat.

The Aam Aadmi Party and the Congress contested the polls separately even though they are members of the Opposition INDIA bloc at the national level. In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the Aam Aadmi Party-Congress alliance lost all seven parliamentary seats in Delhi to the BJP.

Most exit polls had projected that the BJP will defeat the ruling Aam Aadmi Party in the Assembly election. The Aam Aadmi Party had dismissed the exit polls, saying that the surveys had historically underestimated the party’s performance.

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