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The BJP coined a new word for AAP, 'Aapda (crisis)', which Modi repeated constantly during the election campaign to show how Delhi residents's lives had become miserable under AAP's 11-year rule.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday swept the Delhi assembly elections, placing a question mark on the future of Arvind Kejriwal's politics.
Known for his 'Mr Clean' reputation when he first came to power, the first dent to Kejriwal's image came when he was arrested in the Delhi excise policy scam on March 21, 2024.
Before Kejriwal's arrest, his close associate and Delhi's then education minister Manish Sisodia was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in the same case in March 2023.
Only three months earlier, in December 2022, the Aam Aadmi Party had stunned the BJP by winning 134 out of 250 wards in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi elections, proving that when it came to Delhi nobody could beat Kejriwal's party.
But after Sisodia and Kejriwal's arrest, the narrative of AAP's honest politics took a dive, which led to the weakening of the party.
While in jail, Kejriwal refused to resign as Delhi chief minister and held onto his post, putting Delhi's administration in limbo.
In September 2024, when Kejriwal was released on bail following a Supreme Court order, he sensed the public mood was against him and immediately resigned and appointed his loyal lieutenant Aatishi Marlena as chief minister.
'I resigned because I did not come to do corruption in politics or earn money. I came to change the country's politics,' Kejriwal said after his resignation.
'My lawyers told me that my case can go on for 10 years and I do not want to live with this stain. I thought it would be better if I go to the people's court,' Kejriwal said.
That Delhi voters had turned against AAP was first proved when its candidates were defeated in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in the national capital.
AAP had joined the INDIA bloc and contested 4 out of 7 seats from Delhi.
In all four -- West Delhi, South Delhi, New Delhi and East Delhi -- AAP candidates faced a humiliating defeat.
The Congress fared no better in the three seats it had contested -- Chandni Chowk, North-East Delhi and North-West Delhi.
AAP and Congress then parted ways, and decided to contest separately in the Delhi assembly elections.
When the assembly elections were announced, the BJP took the strategy of highlighting Kejriwal's alleged corruption and the AAP government's ineffective governance.
The second ploy was freebies, which the BJP announced to counter AAP as they did in Maharashtra with their Majhi Laadki Baahin scheme for poor women.
AAP had won the hearts of Delhi's poor in the last 10 years of their rule with schemes like 200 units of free electricity, mohalla health clinics and free water supply.
When the AAP manifesto offered Rs 2,100 per month in the bank accounts of women from poor families as 'Kejriwal ki guarantee', the BJP came up with its counter, 'Modi ki guarantee' of Rs 2,500 per month.
The Budget presented in the midst of the Delhi election campaign too changed the narrative as the capital's middle class -- which numbers 50 percent of the population -- was delighted with the income tax relief for those earning up to Rs 12.75 lakh.
Narendra D Modi and Amit A Shah, the BJP's senior-most leaders, consistently told Delhi voters that if voted to power a BJP government would not discontinue any of the AAP freebies.
The BJP coined a new word for AAP, 'Aapda (crisis)', which Modi repeated constantly during the election campaign to show how Delhi residents's lives had become miserable under AAP's 11-year rule.
The anti-incumbency factor against AAP did damage too.
Shah pointed out at every election rally how Kejriwal before he came to power said he believed in simple living but converted the CM's residence into a 'Sheesh Mahal'.
As if on cue social media was agog with videos of Kejriwal's 'Sheesh Mahal', and there was little AAP could do to counter the BJP narrative.
On the governance front too, the BJP went to town over the polluted Yamuna which was not cleaned during Kejriwal's rule/
Kejriwal tried to counter the BJP with his narrative of how the Yamuna was being poisoned from Haryana, a BJP-ruled state, but by then the damage was done.