With vote share of 53.60 per cent and winning 62 seats, the Arvind Kejriwal led Aam Admi Party (AAP) repeated its 2015 feat in the national Capital while BJP has improved its vote share by over 6 per cent but failed to convert it into seats in the Delhi Assembly polls 2020. The saffron party received 38.49 percent votes and managed to win only eight seats. Delhi has recorded a voter turnout of 62.59 per cent when elections were held on Saturday, after an acrimonious campaign and with tension high after three incidents of gunfire at or near protest sites in four days. CPI, CPI (M), NCP, RJD and RLD got lesser votes than NOTA.
According to the Election Commission (EC) data, the ruling AAP saw a slight dip in its vote share. It has received 53.64 per cent of the votes. Maintaining the vote share by the AAP is the indication that the party has strong base in Bihari and Poorvanchalis in unauthorised colonies and Muslim areas. This is because of free electricity, free water and free bus travelling for women. In the last Assembly elections, it had bagged 54.5 per cent of the votes.
The BJP improved its vote share but failed to convert it into seats. The saffron party won 38.45% of the votes cast. This was higher than the 32.3 percent vote share for the BJP in the 2015 elections. It is the third straight electoral setback for the BJP after losing Jharkhand and Maharashtra elections last year. In Delhi, BJP never succeeded in one to one electoral contest. In 1993, the saffron party had managed to win due to triangular contest between the Congress and Ramvir Singh Bidhuri led NCP. Between 1998 and 2013, the saffron party had lost in one to one electoral battle.
The elections marked the continuing decline of the Congress in the national Capital, where it was in power from 1998 to 2013. The party had won 4.27 percent of the votes, down from the paltry 9% it had secured in 2015. In the 2008 elections, the Congress had a vote share of 40%, which was almost reduced by almost half when the AAP came along in 2013. The Congress was not in second place in any of the 70 seats in the city, and 63 candidates has forfeited their deposit. However, Congress leaders had revealed ahead of the result day that their party was tacitly backing AAP and hence did not do any intense campaigning in a bid to refrain BJP from coming to power in the national capital. According to the Election Commission, a candidate has to forfeit his or her security deposit if they receive fewer than one-sixth of the total votes polled - or less than 16.66% of the votes.
As per the data, Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) received 0.71 percent vote share. Interestingly, None of the Above (NOTA) got 0.47 percent vote share which is more than the CPI which received 0.02 percent; CPI (M)'s 0.01 percent vote share and Sharad Pawar's NCP managed only 0.02 percent vote share. Janata Dal (United), has contested the polls in two assembly seats-Sangam Vihar and Burari, got only 0.87 percent votes. Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party contested from Seemapuri and got 0.36 percent votes.
The BJP had campaigned aggressively for the February 8 Assembly election, and banked on the image and policies of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Union Home Minister Amit Shah led the campaign charge for the party in Delhi, and addressed a number of rallies. He also conducted door-to-door campaigns.
The main election issue for BJP, which centred its campaign around nationalism, was the Citizenship (Amendment) Act or CAA protest in south Delhi's Shaheen Bagh. The BJP tried to corner AAP over the protests saying they support such things and lashed out at the Delhi government for inconvenience caused due to closure of road connecting south Delhi with Noida.
