Why the results in Delhi matter at a national level

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has finally been able to bridge the decade-long gap between its national and state-level performance in the national capital.

- Roshan Kishore and Nishant Ranjan

NEW DELHI: After winning all seven parliamentary constituencies in Delhi in 2019 and then the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, it has finally won a two-thirds majority in the Delhi assembly. Despite its limited parliamentary footprint, Delhi has always had an important voice in shaping the national political narrative. What do the latest results mean for the larger political landscape in the country? Here are three charts which answer this question.

The BJP's embrace of freebies continues to reward it. The biggest narrative of the BJP in the 2024 Delhi elections was that all of the Aam Aadmi Party's welfare schemes would be continued. The AAP campaigned almost entirely on the plank that the BJP was lying. This is the most important takeaway from the fiscal front of political economy.

The BJP, after its 2014 victory, invested in welfare schemes which prioritised asset delivery rather than income generation ones. Providing toilets, LPG cylinders, houses and piped water is an example of the former while cash transfers, power and water subsidies or free bus travel are examples of the latter. The BJP made an exception before the 2019 elections by announcing PM-KISAN but was extremely fiscally conservative in the 2024 interim budget before the elections.