Delhi Election Results 2025 LIVE Updates: Who will be the next Delhi CM? Where will AAP and Kejriwal go from here?

In the run-up to the Delhi Assembly elections, the BJP did not declare a chief ministerial candidate. It kept the focus on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the “face” of its campaign, seeking votes on the promise of the “Modi guarantees”. For the AAP, the electoral campaign and strategy revolved around the persona of Arvind Kejriwal.

The Lokniti-CSDS Survey conducted around the time of the elections indicates that for a majority of the respondents (57%), the party was the most critical consideration when deciding whom to vote for. Close to one-third of the respondents (32%) mentioned the candidate as being the key factor behind their voting decision. A handful of the respondents referred to the CM candidate as a key factor influencing their voting choice (Table 1).

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The Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), which attempted to woo back its core Jatav Dalit voter base in the Capital by contesting 68 of Delhi’s 70 seats, not only drew a blank but polled only 0.58% of the votes — fewer than it garnered in 2020 and lesser than the vote share of debutant AIMIM (0.77%), which contested only two seats.

The BSP also came close to being beaten by NOTA, which polled 0.57% of the votes.

On Sunday, Mayawati chose to blame the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) for its debacle. “The BSP and other parties suffered as the results of the Delhi polls were one-sided in favour of the BJP, which ended its 27-year wait to assume power. One major reason for this is the AAP’s tenure in the Capital,” Mayawati said in a statement, while urging her supporters not to get disappointed.

Despite their fall, there was a silver lining for BSP. What was it? Read it here!

If the BJP secured an emphatic victory in Delhi riding on a strong anti-incumbency sentiment and promising better governance, the AAP, which emerged from the throes of an anti-corruption movement, appears to have suffered to a great extent on account of allegations of corruption.

The Lokniti-CSDS Survey, measuring the public perception of corruption and its influence on voting decisions, found that about a quarter of the voters opposed giving the AAP government another chance as they felt corruption had worsened in the state.

What were the two specific controversies that seem to have contributed in fuelling this perception. Read here!

The results of an election are often a by-product of who lost, and, in the process, who won. The just concluded Assembly elections in Delhi are a case in point. After a decade in power, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) saw a sharp decline in public support with the ‘credibility quotient’ of its leadership clearly taking a dip. A direct corollary to this development was a decisive victory for the BJP.

The Lokniti-CSDS Survey, carried out between January 29 and February 6 (the day after polling) and covering 3,137 respondents across 28 Assembly seats, showed that local issues were paramount among voters, there was anger against the AAP MLAs as well as dissatisfaction with its government, and that, contrary to the belief that the BJP surged ahead of the AAP in the final lap, more than half the voters had made their choice even before the campaign began. (An analysis of specific themes in detail follows.)

What are the three important factors hence merit consideration in explaining the electoral verdict in Delhi? Read here!

The findings presented here are from the Delhi Assembly Election Study 2025, conducted by the Lokniti programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi. The survey was conducted between January 29, 2025 to February 6, 2025. A total of 3,137 respondents were interviewed across 28 Assembly constituencies (ACs) and 140 polling stations (PSs) across Delhi’s 70 constituencies.

A multi-stage random sampling was used for sample selection. This procedure ensures that the selected sample is fully representative of the cross-section of voters in the state. The ACs where the survey was conducted were randomly selected using the probability proportional to size method (adjusting the probability of choosing a particular constituency according to the size of its electorate).

Read full analysis here.

The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) “double engine” appears set to roll into Delhi. At 11.30 am on Saturday, the BJP looked on track to unseat Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) after three Assembly elections, and wresting back the Union Territory for itself after 27 years.

With the Election Commission of india giving it a lead in 44 out of 70 seats, well over than the halfway mark of 35. The AAP was leading in 26 seats. The Congress was not in the picture.

The AAP was battling anti-incumbency and internal disarray due to its senior leaders spending extended periods of time in jail.

Here are five reasons how BJP swept Delhi poll results.

In the 2013 Delhi Assembly election, Arvind Kejriwal defeated the three-term incumbent Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit at the New Delhi constituency, effectively ending her political career, and sending the political fortunes of the Congress in the national capital on a downward spiral from which the party is yet to recover.

More than 11 years later, things came full circle for Kejriwal on Saturday (February 8). The former Chief Minister was defeated by a little over 4,000 votes by the BJP’s Parvesh Sahib Singh, the 47-year-old son of Sahib Singh Verma, one of the three BJP CMs of Delhi.

Like Dikshit’s Congress, Kejriwal’s AAP now faces an uncertain political future out of power.

Arjun Sengupta recalls Delhi elections 2013 here.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has had three Chief Ministers in Delhi before this — Madan Lal Khurana, Sahib Singh Verma, and Sushma Swaraj. The fourth will likely be announced soon.

The BJP ruled Delhi between 1993 and 1998, and the tenures of its three previous CMs saw political scandals and infighting that hurt and weakened the party.

Here is a look at the three previous Delhi CMs of the BJP and their tenures.

AS THE BJP returns to power in Delhi after 27 years, it has also managed to end the incumbent Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) dominance in the Capital’s rural constituencies.

Of the 70 Assembly seats in Delhi, there are approximately 18 seats with sizeable rural populations. The BJP won 13 of them, with the AAP picking five. Of the 13, the BJP won six with a vote share exceeding 50%. The AAP was equally dominant in four of its five.

The BJP’s rural dominance matched its performance in urban areas, where of the 52 seats, the BJP won 35. The AAP got 17.

Anjishnu Das decodes.

The Delhi Assembly election results have thrown up a parallel from 2013 and it involves parties that were dislodged from power.

Like the Congress that found itself out of power after governing the national capital for over a decade, the AAP on Saturday saw itself reduced to more or less the same regions of Delhi where the Congress did well in the 2013 polls, the last time it managed to open its account in the national capital.

In 2013, the Congress won a majority of its seats in Central and Northeast Delhi, two of the regions where the AAP did well this time along with South Delhi. Back then, the Congress won eight seats of which three were in northeast Delhi and two in central Delhi where Muslims and the economically backward form a sizeable population.

Read more about the parallel here.

Despite focussing on Purvanchali-dominated during campaigning for the Delhi Assembly polls, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and BJP shared the honours in the seats dominated by the community, winning five seats each even as Bihar-based NDA allies, the JD(U) and LJP (RV) tasted defeats in the seats they contested.

Purvanchalis, who trace their origins to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and relocated to the capital in search of jobs, are seen to be a dominant force in constituencies like Sangam Vihar, Deoli, Ambedkar Nagar, New Delhi, Burari, Kirari, Babarpur, Malviya Nagar, Karawal Nagar, Laxmi Nagar but are seen to have a presence in almost all the 70 constituencies of Delhi.

In the run-up to the polls, the BJP had claimed to have nominated over half-a-dozen Purvanchalis while sources in the AAP said it had fielded over 10 candidates. Both parties had also made several promises to the community while accusing each other of mistreating the community. The BJP also deployed its leaders from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar to campaign in the capital in a bid to woo the community.

Read more here.

Of the 22 constituencies in Delhi that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has won, 14 are dominated by Dalits and Muslims.

The geographical spread of the AAP’s victories and that it continues to have almost 44% vote share show that the party largely retained its support base among the city’s poor.

The party has registered an overwhelming performance in constituencies reserved for the Scheduled Castes (SCs), winning 8 of the 12 seats reserved for them. The BJP was able to win four SC-reserved seats despite fielding 14 Dalit candidates in the polls.

The AAP’s performance in Muslim-dominated seats was just as impressive as the party won six of the seven constituencies where Muslims are a decisive factor. Like, Dalits, Muslims too found the AAP a stronger challenger to the BJP than the Congress.

Here's what the map tells us about AAP.

The Delhi Assembly results on Saturday revealed that the BJP won nine of the 13 close contests, where the victory margin was less than 5,000 votes while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won the remaining four.

The Congress seemed to have played spoilsport for AAP bigwig and ex-Deputy CM Manish Sisodia, who lost to the BJP’s Tarvinder Singh Marwah by 675 votes while the Congress’ Farhad Suri finished third with 7,350 votes.

The AAP’s biggest setback came from the New Delhi seat, where its chief Arvind Kejriwal lost to Parvesh Verma of the BJP by 4,089 votes while the Congress’ Sandeep Dikshit polled 4,568 votes.

Read the Political Pulse here.

The BJP’s electoral victory Saturday sets the stage for easing of the prolonged legal tussle over the state’s “unique constitutional status” between the Centre and the former Aam Aadmi Party-led government.

As it stands now, Article 239AA of the Constitution, keeps services, land, police and public order out of the control of the elected government. While the pre-eminence of the Lieutenant Governor (L-G) was accepted in land, police and public order, the issue of services continued to be a key area of conflict between the Centre and the state.

Under the new law, a body with the Chief Minister of Delhi, the Chief Secretary and the Principal Home Secretary of the Delhi government would appoint bureaucrats. 

If this arrangement continues, it means the CM can, effectively, be vetoed by two senior bureaucrats on the issue of appointments and transfers of bureaucrats.

Apurva Vishwanath explains how the new arrangement would work.

The verdict on Saturday in BJP's favour has the potential to influence national politics more than what Haryana and Maharashtra state polls did last year giving a fillip to the BJP after its unexpected setback in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, Neerja Chowdhury writes in her column.

"But Delhi’s ripple effect travels beyond the BJP getting control of one more state... People wanted Modi for India and Kejriwal for Delhi. This has now changed. Delhi signals that despite the setback Modi suffered in 2024, his popularity remains intact. There was no other leader the BJP relied on in Delhi as it did on Modi, in what was a virtual referendum on AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal. Delhi is also a message to the international community — the representatives of world capitals, international media and the multiple agencies which have a presence here —that they will have to deal with a stronger rather than a weaker PM."

Read Chowdhury's column here.

The Indian Express’s Deputy Associate Editor Aakash Joshi spoke with political analyst and activist Yogendra Yadav to break down the key factors behind Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) defeat in the 2025 Delhi elections.

They discuss the BJP’s sweeping victory, Congress’s evolving role in the political landscape, and how voter sentiment, governance issues, and campaign strategies shaped the outcome.

Yadav also shared insights on what this election result means for the future of Delhi’s politics and its impact on national elections.

Watch here:

Some of the factors that are likely to guide the BJP’s decision while picking its Delhi Chief Minister include balancing gender, caste and community with experience, its vision of a “Delhi befitting the status of India’s capital city” and consolidating, for the future, a political mandate that has eluded it for close to three decades.

Discussions on a potential CM had begun soon after the announcement of the party’s final list of candidates in January, according to sources.

“A BJP Lok Sabha MP could be the CM pick. East Delhi MP Harsh Malhotra, North East Delhi MP Manoj Tiwari and New Delhi MP Bansuri Swaraj seem to tick all the boxes required in this regard,” a party source said.

Jatin Anand and Gayathri Mani delve deeper on BJP's choice of next Delhi CM.

As Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secures victory in the Delhi Assembly elections 2025, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Hardeep Singh Puri talks about the incoming government’s vision and the top priorities for the Capital in an interview with The Indian Express.

Calling the historic mandate as "deserved" by the people of Delhi, Puri says: "It may just appear like an electoral win but it is more than that — it is a significant political development. It puts paid to the model of deceit and fraud that he (AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal) had come up with... Getting him out, as the people of Delhi have done, was a necessity.

On BJP's choice of the next Delhi CM, Puri asked people not to pay heed to speculations. He said: "It is a question of giving Delhi, where the party was not in power for almost three decades, a face for the coming five years. It is a significant question that calls for much deeper introspection before making a decision. No one can simply stake a claim to this (post); the decision will be taken by the top leadership of the party. "

Read the full interview by Jatin Anand here.

AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal's defeat marks a completely new chapter for his party, as he has personally not suffered a loss since the 2013 win, barring when he stood against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Varanasi in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The 2014 election, though, was more symbolic than anything else.

Even when the AAP suffered setbacks in its bids to expand, New Delhi provided the cushion Kejriwal needed to stay in contention.

Now, not only has Kejriwal himself lost, but also former deputy CM Manish Sisodia, his No. 2 and the face of its education model. Can the AAP survive the Delhi loss and bounce back is the test before the party – for its future not just in the Capital but also nationally – particularly given that it draws its oxygen from Kejriwal. Mallica Joshi writes

Many AAP senior leaders lost to the AAP — and the Congress was partly to blame.

If Arvind Kejriwal lost from New Delhi, Manish Sisodia was defeated from Jangpura, Saurabh Bharadwaj from Greater Kailash, Somnath Bharti from Malviya Nagar, and Durgesh Pathak from Rajinder Nagar, all seats where the Congress got more votes than the winning margin of the BJP, thus affecting the result. In all, there were 13 such seats out of 70.

The BJP’s Parvesh Verma defeated Kejriwal, in a seat the AAP chief had won three times since 2013, by 4,009 votes. The Congress candidate, Sandeep Dikshit, got 4,568 votes in the New Delhi seat to finish third. In 2013, Kejriwal had defeated Dikshit’s mother Sheila Dikshit to end her reign as CM. Anjishnu Das decodes the numbers

The AAP loss in the Delhi Assembly elections has raised questions about the impact it will have in Punjab, with party leaders admitting there will be repercussions in the only state where the Arvind Kejriwal-led party remains in power.

“The AAP has similar big-ticket projects in both Delhi and Punjab, such as free power and mohalla clinics. Kejriwal’s popularity in Delhi had created a similar effect in Punjab. It was after the AAP’s victories in Delhi that Punjab’s electorate voted for AAP in the 2022 Assembly elections. How we do in Delhi certainly has an impact in Punjab,” said an AAP leader in Punjab.

An AAP leader said with Delhi lost, Kejriwal would have Punjab to concentrate on for the next two years till the state goes to polls. “This would certainly lead to interference. The former Delhi CM will control the state government,” the AAP functionary added. Kanchan Vasdev, Man Aman Singh Chinna, and Raakhi Jagga bring voices from Punjab, where the AAP's defeat in Delhi will have its most impact.

The AAP — which has been reduced to just 22 seats in the Delhi Assembly polls — has won most of its seats in central and east Delhi. A majority of these seats have been won in constituencies dominated by Dalits and Muslims. Of the 22 seats AAP has won, 14 have sizeable population of Dalits and Muslims.

Geographically, AAP has been almost wiped out in West Delhi, winning just Tilak Nagar and Delhi Cantt. In North Delhi too, it has come down to Sultanpur Majra, Burari and Kirari. In Central and North East Delhi, however, the party has won 11 seats. The rest of the seats for the party have come from South Delhi.

In Central Delhi, AAP has won Patel Nagar, Karol Bagh, Sadar Bazar, Ballimaran, Matia Mahal and Chandni Chowk. In Northeast and East Delhi, the AAP has won Seelampur, Babarpur, Gokulpuri, Seemapuri and Kondli.

In South Delhi, the AAP has won from Kalkaji, Okhla, Tughlaqabad, Badarpur, Deoli, Ambedkar Nagar and Mehrauli.

The demography of these constituencies either have a large number of Muslims and Dalits or have large populations of the working class. — Deeptiman Tiwary

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s defeat in the Delhi Assembly polls coupled with the Congress’s decimation is set to roil the Opposition INDIA bloc further. There would be increasing calls for the replacement of the Congress as the de facto leader of the alliance, which has been tottering since the Lok Sabha elections last year.

The Congress is set to face intense heat from the INDIA allies as several of them believe the grand old party has not been able to take along everyone and give direction to the bloc. The Trinamool Congress (TMC), for one, is keen that its supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is given the responsibility to lead the alliance, but it is easier said than done.

In the wake of the Lok Sabha elections, the INDIA bloc has effectively worked only in Parliament where the allies would coordinate their floor strategies to try and corner the Narendra Modi-led NDA government. Outside, the bloc came undone in the Haryana Assembly polls, held in October last year, where the Congress had appeared to be under an illusion that it could defeat the BJP on its own steam. — Manoj C G writes

In Karawal Nagar, the BJP’s Kapil Mishra, who is a former AAP leader, has secured the highest victory margin as per leads until 1:50 pm. In a seat where he replaced the BJP’s sitting MLA as a candidate, Mishra leads against the AAP’s Manoj Tyagi by more than 44,800 votes.

The BJP has three of the five biggest margins so far, including leads.

The next highest margin is in Matia Mahal, where former Deputy Mayor Aaley Mohammad Iqbal leads against the BJP’s Deepti Indora by nearly 42,700 votes. The others with the biggest margins are BJP’s Vijender Gupta in Rohini at over 36,800 votes, followed by the AAP’s Chuadhary Zubair Ahmad in Seelampur at 32,800 votes, and the BJP’s Jitender Mahajan  in Rohtas Nagar at 32,023 votes. In four of these five seats, the results are yet to be declared. — Anjishnu Das

While it has lost power in Delhi, the AAP will retain the national party status that it was accorded by the Election Commission in April 2023. One criteria for a party to be declared a national party as per the Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968 is that it must be a state party in four or more states. The AAP had been declared a state party in Punjab, Goa, Gujarat and Delhi based on its vote percentage and seats in the last cycle of Assembly elections there. In Delhi, AAP retains its state party status, which is given to those parties that get at least 6% of the total valid votes and get at least 2 MLAs in the Assembly elections, among other criteria. — Damini Nath

“The party will decide after February 8… If they want to make me CM, I will heed their demands.” Speaking to The Indian Express on the campaign trail in January, BJP’s Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma had this to say about his prospects.

Having dethroned AAP supremo and three-time Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal from the New Delhi seat today, Verma would fancy his chances for the top post.

New Delhi is incidentally the same seat from where Kejriwal defeated former CM Sheila Dikshit in 2013, ending her 15-year rule. The seat, which also saw Sheila’s son Sandeep Dikshit in the fray from the Congress (he finished a distant third), has typically been a barometer of the rising and falling popularity of the ruling government. — Nirbhay Thakur writes

According to latest trends, apart from Mustafabad, the AAP candidates are comfortably ahead in Chandni Chowk, Matia Mahal, Babarpur, Seelampur, Okhla, and Ballimaran. Five years ago, the party had won all seven seats by big margins. However, in the run-up to the polls, AAP leaders had admitted that the margins may see a dip.

Despite an underlying feeling within the community that the AAP had not stood by it, especially during the 2020 riots and anti-CAA protests, Muslims saw the AAP as the only viable option that could pose a challenge to the BJP. — Asad Rehman writes

Almost 40% of the seats that the AAP is leading in are those reserved for Scheduled Castes (SCs). In an election in which it has been virtually routed, and is leading in just 22 seats, the AAP appears to be winning eight SC-reserved constituencies. In all, Delhi has 12 SC-reserved seats.

The trend shows that the AAP support base among Dalits has remained. After the row over Constitution drifted Dalits away from the BJP in the Lok Sabha polls in UP, this result shows that the depressed classes in Delhi continue to remain suspicious of the BJP. The constituencies in which AAP is leading include Ambedkar Nagar, Sultanpur Majra, Patel Nagar, Trilokpuri, Karol Bagh, Kondli, Deoli  and Gokulpuri. Meanwhile, the BJP is leading in Seemapuri, Mangol Puri, Bawana and Madipur.

Notably, in a bid to woo Dalit votes, the BJP fielded 14 Dalit candidates. However, even this gesture does not seem to have cut ice with the larger Dalit population. In fact, it has lost those two seats as well by huge margins. Given that the Dalits are also among the economically underprivileged in Delhi, it could also indicate that the AAP has been able to retain significant support among the poor in the city. — Deeptiman Tiwary

The victory for the BJP in Delhi is another affirmation that Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s image as an election winner remains undented.

The win comes on the back of big Assembly poll victories by the BJP in Maharashtra and Assembly, two states where it was seen as heading for a defeat. A return to power in Delhi after more than 27 years would decisively shake off the shadow cast on the BJP by the Lok Sabha results, less than a year ago. The Delhi win will also be a reaffirmation of the credibility of “Modi’s guarantees” at a time when all the parties – both national and regional – are vying with each other on welfare politics. As well as the credibility of the PM’s promise of “good governance”.

Defeating the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) goes beyond Delhi for the BJP as the Arvind Kejriwal-led outfit challenged the latter’s dominance in the North. Not having the Capital under it even as it redefined politics across the country remained an eyesore for the BJP. — Liz Mathew writes

Some are maintaining their leads, while others are trailing.

Delhi Chief Minister Atishi is trailing behind the BJP’s Ramesh Bidhuri by 2,882 votes after seven rounds of counting.

Sultanpur Majra MLA Mukesh Ahlawat, the minister of employment, also had a lead of more than 10,000 votes over the BJP's Karam Singh Karma.

Delhi Food and Civil Supplies Minister Imran Hussain managed a lead of 26,770 votes over the BJP's Kamal Bagri from Ballimaran

In Greater Kailash, Delhi Health Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj is behind the BJP's Shikha Rai with a margin of 1,300 votes.

Raghuvindr Shokeen, the Nangloi Jat AAP MLA who was the last entrant into the Delhi Cabinet in December last year was trailing behind the BJP's Manoj Kumar Shokeen by a margin of more than 15,000 votes. — Jatin Anand