ISAS Insights

Nobody, not even members and supporters of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), had foreseen the party’s stunning victory in Assembly elections. The sweep by AAP – 67 out of 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly – has virtually no parallel in India’s electoral history. While most exit polls had forecast a win for the AAP not one, including AAP’s internal surveys, had gauged the extent of the victory. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which is in power at the Centre, was crushed with a tally of merely three seats while the misery of the Congress continued with the party drawing a blank. In terms of vote share, the AAP won 54% to the BJP’s 32% and the Congress’s 10%. Indeed, such was the magnitude of the victory, AAP chief and chief minister designate Arvind Kejriwal’s first reaction was to label the huge majority as “scary.”