NEW DELHI: In the bustling newsrooms, as vote counting began for the Delhi elections, two names dominated the airwaves: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Conspicuously absent from the conversation was the Congress party – once the dominant force in Delhi’s political landscape.
The grand old party, which ruled Delhi for 15 years on the trot from 1998 to 2013 found itself staring at a fourth consecutive defeat.
Delhi Election Results 2025
As election officials huddled over counting machines, the Congress party’s absence from the political discourse painted a stark picture of its declining influence in the capital.
“It feels like that BJP government will be formed. Our only disappointment is that we didn’t get the votes as per what we were expecting. In New Delhi constituency, neck and neck fight is going on between Arvind Kejriwal and Parvesh Verma,” Congress’s candidate from New Delhi constituency Sandeep Dikshit said.
First Congress lost allies, then votes
The story of Congress’s downfall in this election began well before the first vote was cast. The fractures within the INDIA bloc, a coalition of opposition parties, became apparent when heavyweight leaders like Mamata Banerjee and Akhilesh Yadav chose to back AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal instead of their supposed ally, Congress.
“It feels like the BJP government will be formed,” admitted Congress candidate Sandeep Dikshit from the New Delhi constituency, his words reflecting the party’s diminishing expectations. The exit polls had already predicted this outcome, with most projections pointing to a clear BJP victory.
Rahul Gandhi during the poll campaigns led a fierce attack on AAP, targeting Kejriwal over corruption allegations, while Kejriwal hit back, raising the National Herald case against Rahul.
Jammu and Kashmir CM Omar Abdullah criticized INDIA bloc allies AAP and Congress for contesting as rivals in the Delhi elections, as trends indicated significant gains for the BJP.
“Aur lado aapas mein (fight more), ” Omar said reacting to trends.
Had the outcome been different if INDIA bloc contested together?
The results raised an inevitable question: Could the outcome have been different if the INDIA bloc had maintained unity? Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut seemed to think so, suggesting that a combined opposition could have secured victory against the BJP within the first hour of counting.
“The early trends show a sharp competition. Had Congress and AAP been together, the results may have been different. The political opponent of AAP and Congress is BJP. Both of them fought to keep BJP from coming to power, but they fought individually. If they had been together then BJP’s defeat must have been confirmed in the first hour (of counting),” Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut said.
The division of opposition votes, a phenomenon also witnessed in the Haryana assembly elections, appeared to play directly into the BJP’s hands. The very alliance that was formed to unite the opposition against the BJP ended up exemplifying its disunity.
As Delhi’s political landscape continues to evolve, the Congress party struggles to stay relevant. The party that once commanded the capital’s political narrative now finds itself searching for relevance in a city it once called its own.
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