Halting the Modi juggernaut, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday (February 10) scored a landslide victory in the Delhi Assembly election by snatching 67 of the 70 seats after steamrolling BJP leaving it with only three seats and decimating Congress which drew a blank. In an election that was billed by the opposition as a referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the AAP tornado threw veterans of both BJP and Congress into the electoral dustbin in their traditional bastions. BJP leaders accepted the defeat as a "setback" but dismissed suggestions that it was a vote against the Modi government's performance. The AAP's feat was rarely achieved in any state in the past. Only once in 1989, the Sikkim Sangram Parishad had won all the 32 seats in the Assembly. 46-year-old-former Revenue Service official, Arvind Kejriwal, who spearheaded the party's victory march, was later elected leader of the AAP Legislature Party after which he staked claim to form government.
Lt Governor Najeeb Jung conveyed to Kejriwal that he will send a report to the President, a formality enabling government formation. Kejriwal won the prestigious New Delhi seat by a margin of over 31,500 votes defeating the nearest BJP rival Nupur Sharma, a political novice. Former Minister and Congress veteran Kiran Walia came a poor third with 4,700 votes and lost her deposit. The BJP gamble of bringing in rank outsider Kiran Bedi, a former IPS officer and an erstwhile associate of Kejriwal in the anti-corruption movement, backfired hugely. A party that won all the seven seats in the Lok Sabha election nine months ago, BJP's humiliation was complete when Bedi lost in the traditional stronghold of Krishna Nagar which was long held by its veteran Harsh Vardhan. She lost by more than 2,000 votes.Congress' CM candidate Ajay Maken also suffered a crushing defeat by a margin of over 50,000 votes at the hands of a novice from AAP Som Dutt in Sadar Bazar constituency and lost his deposit. Maken resigned as Congress
