- First, it most people in India vote differently for state Assembly and Parliament elections.
- Second, it is not a victory for those protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens.
- Third, 'hate speeches' is not a cheat code that always garners more votes.
- Fourth, Both BJP and Congress have relatively less traction in local elections.
- Fifth, regional parties can beat the BJP if they don't fall for its traps.
| Party | 2020 Seats | 2020 Vote share | 2019 seats | 2020 Vote share |
| AAP | 62 | 53.63% | 67 | 54.34% |
| BJP | 8 | 38.45% | 3 | 32.19% |
| Congress | - | 4.27% | 0 | 9.65% |
| Others | - | 3.6% | 0 | 3.82% |
With three big state elections coming up in the next couple of years, the incumbent government in West Bengal under Trinamool Congress led by Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, and those challenging BJP-supported governments in Bihar and Tamil Nadu, have lessons to take from Kejriwal's strategy ,as well as foes and potential friends actor-turning-politician Rajinikanth.
In Bihar, where elections are due this year, the ruling government under Chief Minister Nitish Kumar is a coalition between the BJP and the Janata Dal (United), and it will face-off with the alliance between Rashtriya Janata Dal, led by Lalu Prasad Yadav, and the Congress.
In Tamil Nadu, the ruling All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) under Chief Minister Edappadi Palanisamy is a BJP-ally and the challenger is the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) under the leadership of MK Stalin.
This victory for AAP not only gives Kejriwal a second full term as Chief Minister of the Union Territory but also offers lessons for political parties across the country.
First, it reinforces the fact that most people in India, and particularly in Delhi, vote differently for state Assembly and Parliament elections.
Just about eight months ago, the same people of Delhi voted overwhelmingly for Prime Minister Narendra Modi's party and AAP could not get a single seat in the Lok Sabha, the lower house of Indian Parliament. The comfort of those numbers may have played a role in BJP's strategy in the Delhi election. The saffron party was raking up national issues— like illegal immigrants from neighbouring countries— consistently but as the numbers show, it didn't yield the desired result.
For example, BJP’s Anil Kumar Bajpai has won the Gandhi Nagar constituency by a comfortable margin of over 5,000 votes. He won in 2015 too, but on behalf of AAP. Clearly, his aura at the local level clearly has more pull than the party he represents.
Second, it is not a victory for those protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act and the National Register of Citizens.
While finding faults with the BJP's strategy, it may be wrong to infer that the Delhi election verdict is in favour of those protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the related National Register of Citizens (NRC), which, together, are feared as tools of discrimination against India's Muslims.
If the vote has been cast on local issues, it would be wrong to draw inferences on national issues. There is enough anecdotal evidence that, there is still a lack of clarity among the masses on the intent and the potential impact of the CAA and the NRC.
And it is very likely that BJP— with its resources and its hold over mass media— will be able to sway public opinion in favour of the CAA and NRC; it would be a relatively easy task in a country where majority are Hindus, and there is rising public assertion of the identity against other minorities.
Third, 'hate speeches' is not a cheat code that always garners more votes.
Even while infering BJP still has enough currency to legitimise its move to bring the CAA, and follow it up with the NRC if it wants to, it has to be underscored that the persistent hate speeches against minorities, particularly the Muslims, are causing more fatigue than frenzy.
If the caustic rhetoric against Muslims were a vote gatherer, BJP would have had more seats as one of its Members of Parliament, Parvesh Verma, repeatedly spewed venom that had potential to cause incurable damage. BJP lost all ten state-level constituencies that come under the same Parliamentary segment that Verma represents in the Lok Sabha.
Not just Verma, the regular rabble rousers of the BJP like Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga (Twitter troll-turned-politician) and Kapil Mishra (who defected from AAP to join the BJP) also faced a resounding loss. Verbal violence makes for big headlines but not big results, not always.
Fourth, Both BJP and Congress have relatively less traction in local elections.
With this election, BJP has been kept out of power in the Delhi assembly for 22 straight years with five more to go before the next scheduled election. In the same time, there have been three BJP-led governments at the Central level including the 'Modi waves', that is into its second straight term. The last BJP Chief Minister in Delhi Assembly was the late Sahib Singh Verma, Parvesh Verma's father, between 1996 and 1998.
Even though the BJP failed to make a meaningful impact in the 2020 Delhi election, it at least has a rise in vote share to show.
Congress, on the other hand, is down to a little over 4% vote share in the national capital. Data from the last nine elections in Delhi, including those for the Parliament, the Assembly, as well as the civic body, has shown that the grand old party can be on the winning side but not the winner anymore.