The young whippersnapper political party AAP sweep BJP away in India's capital Delhi

[antimony]

BBC News - Delhi election: Arvind Kejriwal's party routs Modi's BJP

An anti-corruption party has won a stunning victory in the Delhi state elections in a huge setback for India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The BJP admitted defeat after Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) won 67 of the 70 assembly seats.

Mr Modi congratulated the AAP leader, whose career seemed doomed a year ago when he quit as Delhi's chief minister over a crucial anti-corruption bill.

It is the BJP's first setback since it triumphed in the 2014 general election

Looks like the Modi wave has drowned in the AAP Tsunami. Interesting times in Delhi and India.

[Oracle]

AAP - 67/70; BJP - 3/70; Congress - 0/70.

Even though I supported BJP for the LS elections, my support was for AAP in Delhi, though I'm not a Delhi voter.

#1. As per social media chatter, in AAPs 49 day rule in Delhi last time, corruption had reduced significantly. MCD and Delhi Police were scared of Kejriwal staging a dharna (sit-down protest).

#2. Delhiites are politically very vocal and many said that the BJP government hasn't done anything in the last 8 months, which is true.

#3. Church attacks and Ghar-Wapsi programme flooded AAP with Muslim votes, and I guess a significant number of Christian votes too. Very good.

#4. Winning Delhi became a prestige issue for the BJP, so it selected Kiran Bedi as its CM candidate which didn't pay off. After 15 years of Congress rule, BJP loyalists were sidelined, and murmurs of dissent (for selecting Bedi as CM) was an ongoing issue.

AAPs huge win proves that BJP is not invincible. BJP's first budget was a disaster, and nothing significant has been done in the last 8 months since they assumed office other than big talks. Mr. Modi would do well to rein in the fringe right wing extremist idiots, and do what he promised - development, or they risk becoming the next Congress in 2018. Overall, I'm pleased. Always better to have political alternatives. Mr. Kejriwal should use his 5 years in making AAP a potent force by working for development and reducing corruption, or he can do a road-side protest and lose relevance. The choice is his.

[bolo121]

Hope Kejriwal has some actual plan to improve Delhi rather than more dharnas and free sops to the poor from non existent budget surplus.
Modi should use this election defeat as a tool to beat down the extremist fringe of his party.
Its always better when a party has credible opposition to keep them reigned in, and AAP has done that to the BJP

[Oracle]

[Double Edge]

Why BJP may want to lose Delhi | Gulf Times (op-ed) | Jan 19 2015

[Blademaster]

Couple things to take from this election.

1. Congress is finished as a party if they cannot come with a viable political leadership choice as opposed to Gandhi dynasty. Gandhi dynasty is toasted. Writing is on the wall for the Gandhi dynasty and that is a good thing.

2. BJP did not lose votes. In fact, they gained votes but AAP was able to secure the votes that went to Congress the last time and was able to come up with more votes than BJP. So it all really came down to between AAP and BJP and other parties were non existent and AAP won most of the seats.

3. Losing this election was a good thing for BJP because it now alerts BJP to the danger of being complacent and thinking that Congress is the only party that they have to worry about on a nationwide level. That is not true. Congress may be dead but there is an other party willing to take the place of Congress and can do better than Congress. So BJP needs to govern well and be disciplined and not allow the right wing fringe to hijack the platform or talk out of place. It also serves notice to RSS that it must allow BJP to govern and that it is really in their interest in getting the votes out for BJP because if they don't, they won't like the alternative and that they need to be more conciliatory towards minorities because if they are not, they will find themselves being ganged up on all fronts when all the smaller groups join together and vote for one party like it did in this election.

4. I am glad that if AAP won this election, it got 67 votes. Because if the governance goes south, they have no one else to blame but themselves. There can be no excuse this time. So if AAP messes up, it cannot point fingers at somebody else and blame it all on that person as Kerjiwal was so fond of doing. He will quickly realize that governing is not so easy and vastly different from pointing fingers at someone and blaming it on him/her.

[antimony]

2. BJP did not lose votes. In fact, they gained votes but AAP was able to secure the votes that went to Congress the last time and was able to come up with more votes than BJP. So it all really came down to between AAP and BJP and other parties were non existent and AAP won most of the seats.

Seat count down by 29. Yeah, no lost votes

4. I am glad that if AAP won this election, it got 67 votes. Because if the governance goes south, they have no one else to blame but themselves. There can be no excuse this time. So if AAP messes up, it cannot point fingers at somebody else and blame it all on that person as Kerjiwal was so fond of doing. He will quickly realize that governing is not so easy and vastly different from pointing fingers at someone and blaming it on him/her.

Exactly, just like Modi has no excuses if he screws up the country. Lets apply the same principle there too

[Blademaster]

Seat count down by 29. Yeah, no lost votes

Read again sherlock holmes. Look at the data where they count the number of votes. BJP did not lose their number of votes as a whole last time but rather increased the number of votes. But remember that in the last election, there were several major parties that split up the vote so no party got a majority of votes. This time, the choice was two parties, BJP and AAP. AAP completely took the votes away from Congress. Congress received small amount of votes. Other parties barely received any votes. Combined with its own votes and traditional Congress votes, AAP was able to garner the most votes in most seats even though BJP did not lose any votes.

Exactly, just like Modi has no excuses if he screws up the country. Lets apply the same principle there too

And I have far more faith in Modi's ability to govern than Kerjiwal could ever get in his lifetime. I would not be surprised if AAP gets wracked with political infighting since there is no opposition to keep them in line. Kerjiwal may have an ability to get votes but I strongly doubt his political leadership or governance ability.

[Double Edge]

Couple things to take from this election.

Couples come in four parts in your part of the world

1. Congress is finished as a party if they cannot come with a viable political leadership choice as opposed to Gandhi dynasty. Gandhi dynasty is toasted. Writing is on the wall for the Gandhi dynasty and that is a good thing.

They said this the last time the NDA won ?

All incumbent parties become unpopular after a while, allowing others to win. Congress faces anti-incumbency. 3 terms in delhi & maha, you think its time for a change or not.

The only certain way to kill congress is to lose the gandhis.

2. BJP did not lose votes. In fact, they gained votes but AAP was able to secure the votes that went to Congress the last time and was able to come up with more votes than BJP. So it all really came down to between AAP and BJP and other parties were non existent and AAP won most of the seats.

BJP lost a few but its insignficant.

BJP's unit in Delhi is incoherent. That is why shiela got three terms and then like the marathis, Delhi decides they want something else. One apology by AK-67 and people accepted it.

3. Losing this election was a good thing for BJP because it now alerts BJP to the danger of being complacent and thinking that Congress is the only party that they have to worry about on a nationwide level. That is not true. Congress may be dead but there is an other party willing to take the place of Congress and can do better than Congress. So BJP needs to govern well and be disciplined and not allow the right wing fringe to hijack the platform or talk out of place. It also serves notice to RSS that it must allow BJP to govern and that it is really in their interest in getting the votes out for BJP because if they don't, they won't like the alternative and that they need to be more conciliatory towards minorities because if they are not, they will find themselves being ganged up on all fronts when all the smaller groups join together and vote for one party like it did in this election.

Given AAP's performance in the LS elections i would say they are incapable of winning much outside Delhi. AAP is a regional party.

AAP wins big because BJP sucks in Delhi. the BJP leadership thinks they need a new face so they bring in an outsider and i doubt this went well with the local party workers.

4. I am glad that if AAP won this election, it got 67 votes. Because if the governance goes south, they have no one else to blame but themselves. There can be no excuse this time. So if AAP messes up, it cannot point fingers at somebody else and blame it all on that person as Kerjiwal was so fond of doing. He will quickly realize that governing is not so easy and vastly different from pointing fingers at someone and blaming it on him/her.

They will be under more pressure than Modi to deliver and provide a useful distraction ;)

[Oracle]

Read again sherlock holmes. Look at the data where they count the number of votes. BJP did not lose their number of votes as a whole last time but rather increased the number of votes. But remember that in the last election, there were several major parties that split up the vote so no party got a majority of votes. This time, the choice was two parties, BJP and AAP. AAP completely took the votes away from Congress. Congress received small amount of votes. Other parties barely received any votes. Combined with its own votes and traditional Congress votes, AAP was able to garner the most votes in most seats even though BJP did not lose any votes.

Half truth. BJP did gain more votes this time as compared to the elections in 2013, but their vote share reduced by almost a percent.
Delhi elections 2015: Huge loss in seats, but BJP's vote share almost intact

And I have far more faith in Modi's ability to govern than Kerjiwal could ever get in his lifetime.

This blind faith in our political masters has led us where we are today. History says our forefathers had more faith in Congress than the Jana Sangh, innit? Our children might curse us in the future for the choice we made in 2014. Too early to decide, but we can wait, particularly since I have voted for BJP.

I would not be surprised if AAP gets wracked with political infighting since there is no opposition to keep them in line. Kerjiwal may have an ability to get votes but I strongly doubt his political leadership or governance ability.

The same can be said about BJP in the Lok Sabha.

Here check this -

"Yes all of us voted the jhadoo (the broom, AAP's symbol). Our leaders think nothing of us, they never wish us, let alone meet. We know of general secretaries and MPs who have to wait for several weeks before getting an appointment with Shah," a worker said.

After ahankar, a whisper in BJP office: we too voted for jhadoo

[Oracle]

And, In Gujarat, temple dedicated to PM Modi with his idol draws crowds

Holy cow! Dimwits.

[antimony]

Read again sherlock holmes. Look at the data where they count the number of votes. BJP did not lose their number of votes as a whole last time but rather increased the number of votes. But remember that in the last election, there were several major parties that split up the vote so no party got a majority of votes. This time, the choice was two parties, BJP and AAP. AAP completely took the votes away from Congress. Congress received small amount of votes. Other parties barely received any votes. Combined with its own votes and traditional Congress votes, AAP was able to garner the most votes in most seats even though BJP did not lose any votes.

Aah, the vote share argument. And yet when this same argument was forwarded after the 2014 Lok Sabha Election(where the BJP vote share was just a meager 31%), BJP supporters poh-poohed the argument

I am not surprised

[antimony]

And I have far more faith in Modi's ability to govern than Kerjiwal could ever get in his lifetime. I would not be surprised if AAP gets wracked with political infighting since there is no opposition to keep them in line. Kerjiwal may have an ability to get votes but I strongly doubt his political leadership or governance ability.

Sure, if you say so;)



Caption : Beware, its 9 months for the Modi Government, Development (Vikash) can come any time

[Double Edge]

Seat count down by 29. Yeah, no lost votes

Am curious about this. Right now all i hear is hype. This or that with not much basis.

Swing voters in the last couple of weeks ?

Did the BJP show up at all ?

250 rallies by 120 MP's along with 20 union ministers roped in to spread the good word but still people would not go with BJP when the centre holds some serious control over Delhi.

BJP held on to their loyalists but could not add meaningfully to that share. Last year, BJP got more seats than AAP but why did that change as drastically in just one year.

Good relations between AAP and the centre will be tantamount for progress. Course we can expect to see blame games. AAP comes up with some batshit crazy idea, centre naturally refuses, AAP creates a stink. This goes on. The people are left watching and little gets done.

Hope not

[antimony]

Am curious about this. Right now all i hear is hype. This or that with not much basis.

Swing voters in the last couple of weeks ?

Did the BJP show up at all ?

250 rallies by 120 MP's along with 20 union ministers roped in to spread the good word but still people would not go with BJP when the centre holds some serious control over Delhi.

BJP held on to their loyalists but could not add meaningfully to that share. Last year, BJP got more seats than AAP but why did that change as drastically in just one year.

Hubris? A sense of smug self satisfaction? A helicopter candidate with no backing from the party workers? the list can go on