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January 09, 2025
By Manjunath K. Shresthi
The AAP’s star campaigner Arvind Kejriwal was Delhi’s Chief Minister from 2015-24, he made way for Atishi after being released from Tihar jail. The AAP under Kejriwal, has come a long way from 2013-2025. Post the BJP’s massive victory under Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, the saffron party was on a roll and was unstoppable. But its victory run, was stopped by Arvind Kejriwal in 2015, when the AAP swept Delhi polls winning 67/70 seats. In the 2020 assembly elections, the AAP won over 60 seats, leaving tit bits for the BJP. The Congress stood nowhere in the direct contest even then between the AAP and the BJP.
But 2025 is different and a highly motivated BJP, believes in taking no hostages; and not giving the enemy any quarter when it’s been sighted. The PM recently called Kejriwal’s party as AAPda (meaning disaster in Hindi). The saffron party post its reduction in Lok Sabha seats in June 2024, has been continuously gaining ground post its massive victories in Haryana and the Maharashtra assembly polls last year.
Delhi’s former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, is now facing a formidable opponent which rules more than 80% of the states in the country, and looking out for fresh pastures. For the saffron party takes contesting and winning elections far more seriously than governance. The BJP, is fully equipped with money, muscle power, media and changing the political narratives which suits them. The Liquorgate, Sheeshmahal controversies, and its leaders having spent quality time in jail will definitely come to haunt the AAP. One will have to see how the AAP will brush off all the allegations being hurled at them.
What game plan does the AAP have to take on the BJP in the elections ahead in February 2025? The contest between AAP & BJP, according to the residents of Delhi, are being dubbed as the toughest elections being fought. It’s being seen as the battle of equals, and a matter of survival for the AAP’s political credibility. The Delhi assembly segment has been eluding the BJP for more than a decade now. Will the national capital finally fall to the BJP? Can the AAP hold fort against the marauding forces, and defy all odds? Or will the Delhi bastion finally crumble before the BJP’s mighty election machinery?
