NEW DELHI: Though AAP lost key seats in the fiercely contested Delhi assembly elections, one thing was clear: Muslims did not abandon the party.
Of the six seats where Muslim voters have a strength of nearly 35% to 50%, AAP won five – Seelampur, Matia Mahal, Okhla, Ballimaran, and Babarpur – barring Mustafabad, where BJP won by a margin of 17,578 votes. AAP also won three constituencies with substantial Muslim voters: Seemapuri, Chandni Chowk and Sadar Bazar.
Delhi Election Results 2025
Delhi’s Muslims traditionally voted for Congress but switched their allegiance to AAP in 2013.
Seelampur in northeast Delhi, which has around 50% Muslim voters, was won by AAP’s Chaudhary Zubair Ahmad by a margin of 42,477 votes. He defeated INC candidate Abdul Rehman, who won the Seelampur seat in the 2020 assembly polls on an AAP ticket, and came third in this election. In Matia Mahal with nearly 48% Muslim voters, Aaley Mohd Iqbal of AAP won. At Okhla, where Delhi saw a four-way electoral battle, AAP’s Amanatullah Khan secured victory, defeating BJP, INC and AIMIM candidates. Similarly, AAP senior leader Gopal Rai won the third consecutive term from Babarpur, which has around 35% Muslims. Another AAP leader, Imran Hussain, occupied the first place at Ballimaran, estimated to have around 38% Muslim voters.
In other Muslim pockets, AAP candidate Punardeep Singh Sawhney won by a margin of 16,572 votes from Chandni Chowk. AAP’s Som Dutt registered his win from Sadar Bazar by 6,307 votes, and AAP’s Veer Singh Dhingan secured a winning margin of 10,368 votes at Seemapuri.
With nearly 36% Muslim voters, Mustafabad was the only Muslim-dominated seat where BJP recorded a win. At 69%, the constituency recorded the highest voter turnout this election. BJP’s Mohan Singh Bisht, who won the 2020 assembly polls from adjacent Karawal Nagar, registered a victory by a margin of was 17,578 votes. AAP’s Adeel Ahmed Khan got 67,637 votes, AIMIM candidate and Delhi riots accused Mohd Tahir Hussain received 33,474 votes, and Ali Mehdi of INC secured 11,763 votes. BJP had won Mustafabad in 2015 as well.
This time, four Muslim MLAs will go to the assembly, against five in the 2020 assembly elections. Political scientist Mujibur Rehman, the author of ‘Shikwa-e-Hind: The Political Future of Indian Muslims’, said, “There was disenchantment with AAP after its stand on the CAA-NRC protest and the Delhi riots in 2020. Though Kejriwal was the poster boy of the anti-corruption protest, he decided to stay away from Shaheen Bagh.”
Rehman said Muslim voters still backed AAP as it is a decisive challenger to BJP. “Though AAP never made any special efforts to reach out to Muslims, but their candidates did. AAP won from these seats due to their candidate-centric voting. Despite Congress’s national stature, the party couldn’t do the necessary campaigning and connection with voters. AIMIM saw an opportunity, but Asaduddin Owaisi doesn’t have an organisational base in Delhi,” he said.
Hilal Ahmed, associate professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, said: “The first type of voting behaviour is candidate-centric. The second is scheme-centric or package-centric. Despite losing, AAP’s vote share was 43.6%, meaning AAP did not lose its popular support base. In this context, we cannot say that the Muslim voting was eventually AAP-centric.”
