Days after the Capital's victory, the Delhi Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) various poll committees on Wednesday met to assess the assembly election results, with representatives from over 43 specialised committees, each assigned specific responsibilities for the Assembly elections.
The party's Delhi unit and poll in-charge Baijayant Panda, co-in-charges Alka Gurjar and Atul Garg, and city BJP president Virendra Sachdeva were present for the meeting. Election management committee convenor and Union minister Harsh Malhotra, and several other senior leaders also attended the meeting.
According to sources, the primary agenda is to analyse the election results and evaluate the factors contributing to the party's defeat in 22 constituencies. Breaking the jinx, the BJP secured victory in 48 seats with an average winning margin of 14,725 votes. Meanwhile, despite the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) reduced tally of 22 seats, its average victory margin stood at 17,054 votes.
Among the 22 seats which BJP lost to AAP, it only gave tough fight on four seats where margin of defeat was less than 5000 votes. Fourteen BJP candidates lost the election by more than 10000 votes and the highest defeat margin was nearly 42800 votes. However, average victory margin of AAP stood at 17,054 votes despite the fact that the party won just 22 seats out of 70 seats of Delhi assembly.
Seats where BJP gave fight to AAP candidates but defeated by a margin less than 5000 votes are Delhi Cantonment by 2029 votes, Kalkaji by 3521 votes Patel Nagar by 4049 votes and Ambedkar Nagar by a margin of 4230 votes. BJP lost four seats by a marging between 5000 and 10000. BJP lost Sadar Bazar by a margin of 6307 votes, Kondli by 6293 votes, Karol Bagh by 7430 votes and Gokalpur by 8207 votes.
The BJP candidates have shown worst performance on remaining 14 seats where its candidates lost the seat by more than 10000 votes. BJP candidate lost Tilak Nagar seat by 11656 votes, Tuglakabad by 14711 votes, Chandni Chowk by 16572 votes, Sultanpur Majra by 17126 votes, Babarpur by 18994 votes, Burari by 20601 votes, Kirari by 21871 votes, Okhla 23639 votes, Badarpur 25888 votes and Ballimaran by 29823 votes. Despite the overall win in Delhi assembly elections, BJP candidates from Deoli assembly constituency lost by 36680 votes, Seelampur lost by 42724 votes and Matia Mahal by a margin of 42724 votes.
Sources said that BJP had fought with equal strength on these seats but was hopeful to give a good fight on eight seats only. The party candidates were even in leading position in several rounds on these seats but they lost against the AAP candidates. They claimed that the equation of voters was in favour of remaining 14 seats as majority of them are either Muslim dominated seats or reserved (SC) seats where AAP had performed well in previous assembly polls. Two seats where they got success to snatch from AAP are Mustafabad and Jangpura where BJP candidates defeated AAP candidates by breaking equations.
The BJP had set up more than 40 election-related committees to handle campaigning and other related works ahead of the Delhi polls. In his concluding address, Election In-Charge Baijayant Jay Panda expressed gratitude and said that BJP workers in Delhi gave their all during the election campaign. He credited the victory to the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with the strong guidance of the party's national and state units, and the hard work of booth-level workers. He congratulated all workers for their efforts.
Dalits comprise more than 15 percent of the electorate in 36 seats of Delhi, or just over half the total. The BJP won 21 of these, eight of them where Dalits numbered over 20 percent of the population. Only three of its victories came in seats where Dalits number over 25 percent.
In 2020, the AAP won 62 seats and the BJP eight, and in the 2015 election, the AAP won a massive mandate of 67 seats and the BJP, just 3. In this election, which saw a direct fight between the BJP and the AAP, the Congress continued to be on the fringes, failing to win a single seat just like in the 2015 and 2020 elections.
The BJP got 45.56 per cent of the votes, a sizeable jump from 38.5 per cent in 2020. The AAP's vote share dropped from 53.6 per cent in 2020 to 43.57 per cent this time. The Congress only marginally improved its vote percentage from 4.26 per cent in 2020 to 6.34 per cent.
