New Delhi: In a stunning blow to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), party chief Arvind Kejriwal’s boastful 2023 claim in a video has resurfaced and gone viral following the party’s devastating loss in the Delhi Assembly elections, including his own crushing defeat in the New Delhi constituency. Kejriwal had then said: “You cannot defeat us in this life; you’ll need another birth to defeat us in Delhi,” referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP at the time.
Now, those words of Kejriwal appear to be bitterly ironic as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) surges ahead with 48 seats out of 70, while AAP is trailing with just 22 seats.
Needless to say, the AAP had been eyeing a hat-trick in Delhi, and now it faces a humiliating and crushing defeat. As the BJP is set to achieve a historic victory after 26 years of remaining out of power in Delhi, the atmosphere at the AAP headquarters is one of dejection and gloom. At the same time, however, the BJP’s celebration is in full swing. The poll results have shattered Kejriwal’s earlier big claims, proving that the BJP has once again asserted its dominance in the national capital.
In a tweet on X, Rajya Sabha member Swati Maliwal, who was once close to Kejriwal, commented: “Ahankaar Ravan ka bhi nahi bacha thaa (Even Ravan, with all his arrogance, couldn’t save himself)”, mocking Kejriwal’s arrogance in the face of this crushing defeat.
In the high-profile New Delhi constituency, Kejriwal lost his seat to BJP’s Parvesh Verma by a significant margin, marking a personal and political blow to the AAP leader. It wasn’t just Kejriwal who suffered; his trusted aides also faced defeat. Manish Sisodia, once considered Kejriwal’s political heir, was defeated in Jangpura. However, Kejriwal’s other aide and successor as Chief Minister, Atishi, was leading her BJP rival Ramesh Bidhuri in Kalkaji after trailing for a long time.
With the BJP’s vote share standing at 47.01 per cent and the AAP at 43.16 per cent, the outcome of this election has exposed AAP’s vulnerabilities. The party, which once dreamed of a stronghold in Delhi, must now face the sobering reality that the BJP has reclaimed its dominance in the capital.
(IANS)
