The Delhi assembly poll results can be dissected deploying two streams of thought.
The easier way is to look at it from the prism of the parties opposed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Easier way because initial trends indicated the BJP may put up a better-than-expected show proving exit polls wrong.
Ultimately, it ended up as wishful thinking, with the AAP almost repeating the previous Assembly poll sweep.
This means the BJP has been defeated in the sixth state elections in just over a year.
The last drubbing it received was in Jharkhand in December 2019, a state then ruled by the BJP.
Now, Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has managed to retain Delhi with a resounding mandate.
From the BJP camp's perspective, there is a different take.
The BJP can only console itself that it has done better than last polls, when it managed just three seats.
The solace for the BJP is in terms of vote share – it increased its share nearly 6 per cent from 32% in the last assembly polls.
BJP's campaign strategy
The BJP knew it faced giant odds in Delhi. It then got down to business in the last leg of the polls with a blitzkrieg. It was not Prime Minister Modi who was at the forefront of the campaign blitz. Home Minister Amit Shah, who handed over the reins of the party to J P Nadda, was the face of the BJP campaign in Delhi, though the party did not project any chief ministerial candidate.
Amit Shah addressed 30 rallies and 11 roadshows. It thought that sort of galvanized the BJP voters and sympathisers, who got swayed by the use of vitriol. The BJP camp saw a sort of polarization which it desperately sought.
The saffron party then unleashed 200 MPs and many Union ministers who interacted with Delhi's voters.
Meanwhile, the BJP also painted the Shaheen Bagh protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) as anti-national. Its leaders took turns to unleash a shrill political campaign with violent exhortations. It may not have been fair, but then all is fair in electoral battle as long as it yields some sort of desired results.
The BJP could have only hoped to make some decent gains. Instead, it failed miserably in this count also.
How AAP slugged it out
This is the first popular vote in the country after the CAA protests raged in the country. It was clearly divisive, despite the pros and cons hurled by opposing sides.
So it was only natural for the BJP camp, which did not have much to tout at the state level, to turn the campaign into a polarization mode. That was a bait.
Kejriwal's AAP, and not the Congress, was the BJP's main enemy in Delhi.
BJP wanted Kejriwal to bite the bait and lash out at CAA. It wanted him to back Shaheen Bagh protests. The Delhi CM cleverly ducked these contentious issues, which could flare up the minute he took sides.
He just steered clear of it as a political tactic, lest it may all boil down to a polarisation which the BJP desperately sought.
He instead focussed on priorities that resonated with the layman.
So that campaign of hatred did not flare up as no one effectively countered it.
Kejriwal knew his pet schemes, including showering freebies, have had the desired impact on a huge section of the population including women.
Free drinking water and power, with a certain ceiling, also swayed voters to a great extent.
Regularization of residences of slum-dwellers did give AAP a certain edge though the BJP promised pucca houses.
The AAP also toiled to improve the infrastructure in schools, which earned it goodwill.
Basically, trust was the trump card on which AAP managed to ride on to power again. Trust that the AAP could fix things, or get things done. The electorate rewarded it with a mandate for another term. A loss of just 5 seats from its huge mandate of 67 of 70 seats is anyway bound to happen.
But still, it is a great political achievement.
The decimation of the Congress
The Congress had long neglected its organisational apparatus in Delhi. It is evident from the vote share of just about five per cent in a state, which it ruled three terms in a row from 1998.
It failed to accept the fact that it is no more the dominant player in Delhi, though the party did better than AAP in the Lok Sabha polls.
While its leaders claim to have arrested the BJP's march to power, a closer look at the polls would reflect a different picture. It lost its deposit in an alarming number of seats – 67 at this point of time.
The Congress has to introspect on two counts.
It needs to figure out how to go about rebuilding its defunct organization.
It also needs to think about forging alliances as its base shrinks after every election.
The Congress and the AAP should realize that if Lok Sabha polls were to be held now, it would have been a different saffron story. Because, a polarizing, jingoistic pitch is more effective when the stakes are dictated by nationalistic considerations.
The BJP too should swallow that hard truth, before it embarks on a campaign to wrest Bengal next year.
