Delhi Polls: BJP Gets Highest Vote Share In 27 Years, Still Ends Up With 8 Seats

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has improved its tally from mere three seats in the 2015 Delhi Assembly Elections to eight in the 2020 polls. The numbers are much less than what Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari's "48 plus" seats prediction that he made soon after all exit polls on February 8 projected the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) comprehensive victory. However, there is a one stat the party should cheer about -- its vote share which has been the maximum in the 27 years in the Delhi polls.      

The BJP had last won an election in 1993 when it bagged 42.82 percent of the total votes polled. In 2015 Assembly elections, the BJP had got 32.19 percent votes. This year, BJP bagged 38.51 percent of the total votes polled. It means the saffron party has gained 6-7 percent additional vote share in the recently concluded polls.

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The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) got a thumping 53.57 percent vote share which translated into 62 seats and the BJP bettered its tally to 8 seats in the 70-member house. The Congress failed to open its account for the second consecutive time in Delhi with 4.26 percentage of the vote share. The major drubbing came for Congress as most of its candidates were unable to secure deposits.

Moreover, the BJP even failed to retain Mustafabad seat as sitting MLA Jagdish Pradhan lost to Haji Yunus. The BJP also lost the Rajouri Garden seat that it had won in 2017 by-election.

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Delhi Assembly elections took place in the midst of massive protests in the city and elsewhere over the new citizenship law, an issue which was strongly raised by the BJP top leadership during the campaigning which often turned bitter and vitriolic.

BJP’s campaign focused on national security issues while AAP gave the account of its achievements in the fields of education, healthcare and infrastructure. In 2015 Assembly election, the AAP had registered a sensational victory in 2015 by winning 67 seats and BJP was reduced to just 3 seats.