New Delhi:Â Arvind Kejriwal led the Aam Aadmi Party to an overwhelming victory in the Delhi Assembly polls, dealing a body blow to the main rival BJP and completely decimating the Congress in a keenly-watched battle in the midst of anti-CAA protests.
According to Election Commission data, the AAP won in 62 assembly seats while the BJP pocketed the remaining eight constituencies in the 70-seat Delhi assembly.
The Congress party, led by Italian-born Sonia Gandhi, repeated its 2015 performance and once again drew a blank.
In the last election held in 2015, the AAP had won a historic 67 of the 70 seats.
PM Narendra Modi took to Twitter on Tuesday evening to congratulate Arvind Kejriwal on the AAP’s performance in the Delhi polls, saying that ‘he wished them the very best in fulfilling the aspirations of the people of Delhi’. Kejriwal responded to his tweet, saying that he looked forward to ‘working closely with the Centre’.
Thank u so much sir. I look forward to working closely wid Centre to make our capital city into a truly world class city. https://t.co/IACEVA091c
— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) February 11, 2020
The big takeaway from this election is that the larger Modi-Shah method has been, and can be gamed. Nobody can take Modi away from the BJP. No leader seems to be rising anywhere at this point who could conceivably challenge Modi even in 2024. But you can surely deny them the exclusivity over their winning formula and make the contest much less one-sided.