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The BJP won all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi for the third consecutive time, dashing the hopes of the AAP-Congress alliance.
AAP-Congress alliance, which contested with a 4-3 seat-sharing arrangement, did not enthuse the voters of the nation's capital much. However, the INDIA bloc was able to make a dent in the BJP's vote share which reduced from 56.7 per cent in 2019 to 54.35 per cent in 2024. While the AAP got a vote share of 24.17 per cent, the Congress bagged 18.91 per cent. The BJP candidates in Delhi Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, Praveen Khandelwal, Bansuri Swaraj, Harsh Malhotra, Manoj Tiwari, Kamaljeet Sehrawat and Yogender Chandoliya were declared winners with a margin of 1,24,333, 89,325 votes, 78,000, 93,663, 1,38,778 lakh, 1,99,013 lakh and 2,90,849 votes respectively. While the BJP's campaign centred around the work done by its government at the Centre and the portrayal of AAP as a party mired in corruption, the AAP-Congress campaigned extensively saying that India's democracy and the Constitution were under threat under the BJP's rule. The AAP chief and the Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who had got interim bail in the excise policy case from the Supreme Court for the election campaigning, repeatedly said in his public speeches that if the Narendra Modi government came to power again India would be under dictatorship. On the other hand, the BJP called the AAP-Congress "opportunistic" by pointing out that the two parties fought against each other in the Punjab. By replacing six of the seven sitting MPs, the BJP managed to rule out the possible anti-incumbency. The party gambled on fresh faces such as Praveen Khandelwal (Chandni Chowk) and Bansuri Swaraj (New Delhi), the only incumbent in the race was North East Delhi MP Manoj Tiwari. Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, Harsh Malhotra, Kamaljeet Sehrawat and Yogender Chandoliya won from South Delhi, East Delhi, West Delhi and North West Delhi respectively. The verdict also followed the recent pattern of the Delhi voters' behaviour where they backed AAP with consecutive victories with over 50% vote share in the State elections while reposing faith in the BJP to represent them in Parliament. The final count for the Lok Sabha 2024 elections has concluded, with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) winning 240 seats, falling short of the majority mark of 272 and the largest party in the Opposition Congress getting 99 seats up from 52 seats in the 2019 election. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has secured a third term, but the BJP will need to rely on the support of other parties in his coalition - JD (U) chief Nitish Kumar and TDP's chief Chandrababu Naidu. (ANI)
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