Delhi Election: Congress' Vote Share Rises Marginally By Over 2%, Eats Into AAP's In Key Seats

The decision of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Congress, both members of the INDIA alliance, to contest separately in the 2025 Delhi Assembly elections appeared to be a key factor in splitting the anti-BJP vote.

The verbal spat between Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal during the campaign further undermined the opposition's prospects.

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Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah also made a pointed remark about the opposition parties as the BJP headed for a decisive victory in the Delhi polls. On Saturday, he posted a meme on X, saying, "Aur lado aapas mein!!!" (Keep on fighting each other).

AAP saw a significant drop in its vote share, falling nearly 10 percentage points, while the BJP experienced a resurgence with a notable increase in its vote share. The BJP, which had been out of power in Delhi for over 26 years, returned to power in the capital.

While the Congress failed to secure a single seat for the third consecutive time in Delhi, it did see a small improvement in its vote share.

The AAP garnered a vote share of 43.57%, down from 53.57% in the 2020 assembly elections. In 2015, it had secured 54.5%. In both 2020 and 2015, the AAP had won a massive mandate with 67 and 62 seats respectively, but this time it was reduced to just 22 seats.

Meanwhile, the BJP, which returned to power, saw its vote share jump to 45.56%, up from 38.51% in 2020 and 32.3% in 2015.

For Congress, which had ruled Delhi for 15 years between 1998 and 2013, the only consolation was a marginal increase of 2.1% in its vote share, rising to 6.34% from 4.3% in 2020.

There were several seats where key AAP leaders lost to the BJP by narrow margins. These included constituencies where Congress received more votes than the winning margin, such as Timarpur, Badli, Nangloi Jat, Madipur, Rajender Nagar, New Delhi, Jangpura, Kasturba Nagar, Malviya Nagar, Mehrauli, Chhatarpur, Sangam Vihar, Greater Kailash, and Trilokpuri.

For example, in the New Delhi seat, BJP's Parvesh Verma, the son of former Delhi CM Sahib Singh Verma, defeated Arvind Kejriwal by 4,089 votes. Congress's Sandeep Dikshit finished third in the constituency with 4,568 votes, which was higher than the victory margin.

In Jangpura, Manish Sisodia lost to BJP's Tarvinder Singh Marwah by just 675 votes, with Congress's Farhad Suri securing 7,350 votes.

Similarly, in Greater Kailash, Delhi Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj was defeated by BJP's Shikha Roy by 3,188 votes, while Congress's Garvit Singhvi secured 6,711 votes.

At Malviya Nagar, BJP's Satish Upadhyay narrowly defeated AAP's Somnath Bharti by 2,131 votes, with Congress candidate Jitender Kumar Kochar securing 6,770 votes.

In Rajinder Nagar, AAP's Durgesh Pathak lost narrowly to BJP's Umang Bajaj by 1,231 votes, with Congress's Vineet Yadav contributing to AAP's loss by securing 4,105 votes.

However, there were also constituencies where Congress garnered more votes than the victory margin but AAP managed to win, such as in Kalkaji, where Delhi Chief Minister Atishi defeated BJP's Ramesh Bidhuri. The only seat where Congress secured second place was Kasturba Nagar, where Abhishek Dutt polled 27,019 votes but lost to BJP's Neeraj Basoya, who received 38,067 votes.

In three constituencies - Mehrauli, Okhla, and Mustafabad - Congress failed to make it to the top three.

(With PTI inputs)