“The enemy doesn’t warn its target. Emergencies do not make appointments, and the greatest battles of life are often surprises.”
– Wayde Goodall, Why Great Men Fall
The meteoric rise and steep fall of Arvind Kejriwal, the three-time Chief Minister of Delhi- how mighty fall! – caused widespread debate and discussion across the development spectrum. While some persons have been disappointed, others have been flummoxed by a loss of this magnitude reflective of anger among Delhites, yet others seem to be relieved by his departure in this high-stakes election for all three major parties, viz., BJP, AAP and Congress. In a video message on X, the AAP’s former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said he and his party “humbly accepted” the people verdict and congratulated the BJP on its win.
Litany of Failures
A granular examination of the man and the milieu, the individual and the broader macro setting reveals that there were a slew of factors like the 10-year anti-incumbency, governance failures, and a broader political shift at work. No wonder, then, the AAP, which won 67 seats in 2015 and 62 seats in 2020 elections, crashed to 22 seats in 2025. Clearly, then, his political concoction of aggrandizement (reflected in the liquor scam and the hugely ostentatious “Sheesh Mahal” built at the cost of the public exchequer for an “aamaadmi”), his undivided focus on the culture of freebies and revadis in areas, such as water, power, and bus ride failed to carry the day. Prashant Bhushan, who was one of the founders of AAP, placed this issue in perspective when he stressed “a party formed for alternative politics which was supposed to be transparent, accountable & democratic was quickly transformed by Arvind into a supremo dominated, non-transparent and corrupt party which didn’t pursue a Lokpal and removed its own Lokpal”.
Delhi still does not have a Lokpal which was Kejriwal’s Holy Grail in the run-up to the 2013 Assembly elections.
Reneging on Promises
On entering the political fray, Kejriwal loftily proclaimed he would not move into a house or a big car, but moved from a Wagon R to an MG Gloster and spent about Rs. 45 crore to renovate his official residence little realizing “the ambition and focus that propel you to success can also be your downfall” (Judy Smith). The cookie crumbled-and how! Several other flaws to this catalogue of Kejriwal’s faults, which led to his downfall, something like a “free fall” may well be added. His campaign was dogged by over a decade of anti-incumbency, a conspicuous failure on the pollution and waterfronts, corruption allegations, and the incarceration of top leaders like Kejriwal, Sisodia, and Satyender Jain (incidentally all of whom lost the election). Despite splurging on front-page print and primetime television ads, Delhi continued to be riddled with dilapidated roads, shoddy maintenance, and deficient and poor quality water supply.
Vaulting Ambition and Arrogance
To make matters worse, his flaws like unmistakable arrogance and hubris, a sort of congenital inability to see the rising red flags, and a measure of duplicity by applying different mores and standards of living to others and to him forgetting the quintessential truth of the proverb that those who “live by the sword, die by the sword” came increasingly to the fore. This powerful Biblical proverb, which has a parallel phrase derived from the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 26, 26:52), continues to be relevant today. The Bible stressed “Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall”. Viewed thereof, Kejriwal’s tall claim “At least in this birth, Narendra Modi cannot defeat the Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi” came to bite him and placed him in a poor light.
“Ekla Chalo Re” (Rabindranath Tagore) –No Tie-up with Congress
It has sometimes been held that the AAP-Congress rift played a part and had AAP and Congress Parties come together and formed a strategic alliance, the extent of AAP’s loss may have been reduced though it still would have lost the election. To be sure, this is a factor but this does not hold water. Electoral calculations do not always work like this simple aggregation of the votes- the political arithmetic is often vastly different from political chemistry. It is instructive to recall that the Samajwadi Party and BSP united to defeat the BJP in the Lok Sabha 2019 elections. Since their total vote share aggregated well over 50 %, they thought they would sweep the elections and BJP would end up with few seats. But the result? BSP ended with 10 seats and SP with 5 seats making for a measly sum of 15 seats out of 80 seats. Here the element of chemistry kicked in strongly because the SP alleged that the votes of BSP were not transferred to SP.
This is why the concepts of synergy and antagonism come in strongly in the electoral calculus and this observation about a simple addition of votes needs to be suitably qualified. In elections, in flagrant violation of the fundamental rule of arithmetic, 2+2 may be 4 or 6 or even 1 or 2. Strange indeed are the ways of politics!
Retrospect and Prospect
But despite this staggering loss, a loss which has the trappings of Shakespearean and Greek tragedy, Kejriwal may still live to fight another day. For, despite all his faults, his reneging on the promises made and commitments affirmed, and his policy of hit and scoot manifested in seeking public apology half a dozen times, AAP still polled about 44% of the total votes polled. This is not a mean number by any standard, not by a long shot, given the tri-cornered nature of contests in Delhi and it’s wise not to say never in politics. This thesis can easily be substantiated by the Lok Sabha rout of Mrs. Indira Gandhi in 1977 to come back with full force in 1980, the BJP crashed to 2 seats in 1984 but bounced back remarkably subsequently; President Donald Trump lost the US Presidential elections in 2021 to roar back to power once again in 2025. History is replete with such examples and such examples across countries and periods can easily be multiplied.
To cut a long story short, it may be premature to write the political obituary of the AAP Party in general and Arvind Kejriwal in particular. But their resuscitation from the present moribund state will take some effort and some doing. Not an easy task. While this loss by a two-thirds majority may be too early to be called “the beginning of the end”, it may have some spin-off effects in Punjab and could even lead to an existential crisis for AAP. We wait and watch, interesting times ahead.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Dr. Manoranjan Sharma is Chief Economist, Infomerics, India. With a brilliant academic record, he has over 250 publications and six books. His views have been cited in the Associated Press, New York; Dow Jones, New York; International Herald Tribune, New York; Wall Street Journal, New York.
