Results of the Delhi 2025 elections is out. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has been trounced by the BJP in the Delhi Assembly elections. With the BJP winning 48 seats in the 70 seat, unicameral Delhi assembly, the AAP only managing 22 seats, the picture for the head honcho of the party Arvind Kejriwal is really grim, particularly having lost his own seat defeated by Parvesh Verma of the BJP.
Although the other big wigs like – Sourabh Bhardwaj, Manish Sisodia, Satyendra Jain, from Kejriwal’s cabinet also lost, it is the personal loss that will be hurting the chief of the Aam Aadmi Party the most. The reason for that is that Arvind Kejriwal, in many respects ran the AAP political party as a private, personal enterprise parallel to the way the Congress party has been run by the Gandhis. He called the shots and made two rules where necessary – one for himself and the other for the rest of them. For instance, when Manish Sisodia was arrested, he was made to resign while in jail, but he himself chose not to. He installed, his own rubber stamp, his wife Sunita Kejriwal, one can argue sketchily on the lines of Rabri Devi of Bihar, to address the people of Delhi, sitting in the Chief Minister’s chair.
It was a brutal display of personal power. Some will argue, Arvind Kejriwal liked to micromanage the party and its machinations to the nth degree, which is no longer guaranteed to him in the current political circumstances he finds himself in.
It is in clear contrast to the thunder of Kejriwal when he had challenged Prime Minister Modi roaring in the Delhi assembly “Modi will have to be born again to defeat AAP in Delhi, he possibly could not achieve that in his lifetime” or words to that effect.
He is also reported to have said that he “owned Delhi” or was the “Master of Delhi”..
It is difficult to argue against any members of his party who may be disturbed by the result in Delhi. Not only 40 members of the Delhi assembly have no job, many of the 93 AAP MLAs in the 117 seat Punjab assembly are mulling over their chances at the next election and their future.
And why not?
The entire saga of the AAP and Arvind Kejriwal’s politics and the way it all came about, was based on treachery and deceit, argue the supporters of Anna Hazare and his former colleagues including Kumar Vishwas. Someone who swore upon his children not to join politics and to continue fighting against corruption, to expose corrupt politicians of all persuasions and then to be embroiled into the liquor scam and everything else he is alleged to have been part of or architect of, was treachery of herculean proportions to all those both in and outside India, who had seen Arvind Kejriwal as the only and real hope which also included a number in hundreds and thousands of intellectuals, academics and former diplomats.
Arvind Kejriwal’s claims of ‘cleaning up’ the dirty politics with the broom, the AAP’s election symbol, became his nemesis. It worked true to people’s wishes and perhaps cleaned up the ‘biggest liar’ ever in Indian politics as some of the BJP supporters claim.
We have also seen visuals of Aatishi Marlena (“Aatishi”), celebrating her win from the Delhi assembly seat of Kaalkaji. It has also been reported that supporters of Aatishi have claimed that Arvind Kejriwal and his supporters in fact tried to sabotage her campaign and wanted her to lose the seat. Whether that is fallacious or not, dancing the night away while her party, along with its architects was trounced ion the elections was a little ironic to say the least. It also portends ominous for Arvind Kejriwal’s control on the AAP’s 22 elected MLAs, over some, if not all.
There have been reports already that there are some murmurings in the AAP cohort in Punjab and recent withdrawal of special protection by Punjab police, a state ruled by his own party was symbolic of things to come for him. It is not surprising that he has summoned all 93 MLAs to Delhi for a meeting. Lately there have been rumors of Bhagwant Mann posturing differently and perhaps to the dislike of Arvind Kejriwal.
The rumor mills are working in overdrive along with rumors that Arvind Kejriwal is planning to unseat Bhagwant Mann and take over as the Chief Minister of Punjab. Unless there are some ‘joint gigantic skeletons’ in their jointly possessed political closet, it would be unthinkable for Bhagwant Mann to accept any such move by the now vanquished “AAP-da- hero”, Arvind Kejriwal.
His political future looks really gloomy at the moment. Many observers say it will depend not only on how AAP’s Delhi MLAs but also Punjab AAP MLAs and the CM. His detractors say that the chameleon he has proven himself to be, India and the world will see a lot more of his political craft in the days to come.