PM Modi congratulates Arvind Kejriwal for Delhi win

In a tweet, he wrote: "Congratulations to AAP and Shri @ArvindKejriwal Ji for the victory in the Delhi Assembly Elections. Wishing them the very best in fulfilling the aspirations of the people of Delhi."

Nine months after getting crushed by the mighty Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo in the 2019 General Elections, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal came back like a Phoenix in the assembly elections on Tuesday riding on the issues of governance challenging the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s agenda of nationalism.

Though the voter turnout was slightly less than the 2015 assembly elections, Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) went passed 60 seat mark (62) to reduce the BJP to single-digit figure reminding the saffron party of its horrific result five years ago in the national capital.

Even as the BJP picked up the fight in the second and third hours of counting on Tuesday by crossing the 20 seat mark, the AAP came back strong to touch 62, five less seats than the last assembly polls, leaving eight for the BJP and a blank for the grand old party, the Congress.

Almost right from the beginning, it was clear that the BJP were sure of raising the nationalistic agenda as the last nine to ten months of Modi 2.0 fulfilled one after the other poll promises including the abrogation of Article 370 and the enactment of Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), which aims to grant citizenship to persecuted non-Muslims who came to India from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan before 2015.

Striking a deal with poll strategist Prashant Kishore, whose one of the latest clients is West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's party Trinamool Congress (TMC), just before the polls, Kejriwal played strategically by not playing in the hands of the BJP and slowly building an alternate narrative, which the entire Opposition had failed to construct in front of the Modi-Shah duo in the 2019 General Elections.