A prime reason for former AAP Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s personal loss and his party’s defeat in the assembly elections is the middle class, which gravitated towards the BJP, thanks largely due to the announcement of the eight pay commission and tax rebate offered to the salaried people in the Union Budget this time.
The move, political pundits believe, influenced the middle class which was anyway disenchanted with the AAP and Kejriwal, who lost his sheen as an anti-corruption crusader owing to the liquor scam and other corruption charges against him.
This trend, visible during the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, consolidated in the assembly polls. The middle class, including the government servants accounts for 12,000 to 20,000 votes in New Delhi seats alone, and overall they are 45 per cent of the population of the national capital, AAP sources said.
According to Centre for the Study of Developing Societies’ (CSDS) data, 53 per cent of the middle class voters stood by the AAP in 2020, which helped the party get 62 out of total 70 seats in Delhi. On the other hand, BJP managed 39 per cent votes.
Change of mood
The change of mood among the middle class showed up in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. The trend was reversed with 50 per cent of this influential section of society backing the BJP, while 32 per cent exercised their franchise in favour of the AAP.
The AAP had noticed that the middle class was miffed and that’s why Kejriwal had raised seven pre-Budget demands from the Modi government which included raising the income tax exemption slab from ₹7 lakh to ₹10 lakh, and increasing the education Budget from 2 per cent to 10 per cent.
In the 2025 assembly elections, the BJP made impressive electoral gains across West Delhi, East Delhi, Central Delhi and New Delhi regions, which is due to middle class and Purvanchali voters — who basically belong to UP and Bihar — as a whole. It helped the party to take its final tally to 48 seats in the 70-member assembly constituency. The AAP, on the other hand, got 22 seats, as per results declared by the Election Commission of India.
The BJP also performed well in Outer Delhi region, where the party is on course to win over 20 seats to the AAP’s nine.
Corruption cases
AAP leaders privately agreed that corruption cases, systematically lodged against their leaders, did the maximum damage to the party and its top leadership. An AAP source agreed that ‘Sheesh Mahal’ controversy — the corruption in renovation of former Delhi CM Kejriwal’s official residence — had cost them dear. Besides that, a major governance deficit creeped into the government functioning that showed up, to name a few, in pot-holed roads, health care going for a toss, and water crisis, he admitted.
On the contrary, the BJP this time came up with good candidate selection and was fiercely determined to take out the AAP leadership with highly localised planning. This led to the defeat of five top AAP leaders, including Kejriwal and former Deputy CM Manish Sisodia.
Additionally, the saffron party allayed fears of the have-nots by conveying during the electioneering that welfare schemes for the poor would continue and that slum dwellers would also get pucca houses. “It’s time to do some serious introspection and act to improve on the party work culture to ensure that we manage Punjab well and remain in contention in other States like Goa and Gujarat. We don’t have options also. We know the heat is going to come to us much more intensely now since we will be out of power in Delhi,” the AAP leader, who is part of their electoral strategy team said.
The AAP, however, believes that Kejriwal is a fighter and will find his feet. “Being away from focus many times helps. The image slurring campaign will not stand long in the public memory allowing Kejriwal and AAP to revive in future, we hope,” AAP sources added as the party is facing the worst of times.