How the Congress cost AAP a majority in Delhi

The Aam Aadmi Party’s decade-long stint in power in Delhi ended on Saturday, with the party winning 22 seats in the capital’s 70-seat assembly – 14 short of a majority.

The Congress failed win seats for the third time in a row. But it undercut the Arvind Kejriwal-led party in exactly 14 seats, costing the state ruling party dearly.

The Bharatiya Janata Party won all the 14 seats, with a victory margin in each of the constituencies was lower than the votes polled by the Congress in those segments.

This comes just nine months after AAP and the Congress took on the BJP in the Lok Sabha elections in Delhi as part of the Opposition’s INDIA alliance.

The BJP won 48 seats in the Delhi assembly and will form the government in the union territory after 27 years.

The 14 seats where the Congress got crucial votes includes three high-profile seats that AAP leaders lost to the BJP – former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal from the New Delhi seat, former deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia from Jangpura and minister of health Saurabh Bhardwaj from Greater Kailash.

Kejriwal lost in his constituency by 4,089 votes to BJP leader Parvesh Verma, while the Congress’s Sandeep Dikshit got 4,568 votes. Sisodia lost his seat…

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