There is no doubt that when it comes to face, AAP has an edge over his rivals — BJP and Congress. Both the parties currently don't have credible mass leaders. However, political battles are not fought only on faces — other factors also play a crucial role. One of the major factors that plays a crucial role in deciding the fate of electoral battle is political arithmetic.

In Delhi assembly polls of 2013, AAP in its maiden election managed to grab 29.5 per cent votes while BJP and Congress got 33 per cent and 24.6 per cent respectively. While in 2008 assembly elections, when there was no AAP and the battle was mainly between BJP and Congress, the two parties fetched 36.34 per cent and 40.31 per cent respectively. Mayawati's BSP did a spectacular performance in 2008 by winning 2 seats with a good vote share of 14 per cent — but failed to repeat that in 2013 where party wasn’t able to win even a seat and fetched only 5.4 per cent votes.

Of course, BJP lost its vote share in 2013 compared to 2008 — but it was only 3.4 per cent compared to loss of Congress and BSP who lost 15.7 per cent and 8.6 per cent votes respectively. If Congress and BSP's loss are put together, the figure stands at 24.3 and it reaches 27.7 when BJP's 3.4 per cent loss is added — and this figure is almost near to AAP's vote share in 2013 assembly polls. Based on these data, it can be safely assumed that AAP's maiden votes were mostly from non-BJP parties.

This is further confirmed by 2015 assembly elections when AAP almost swept all the seats and reducing the BJP, the single largest party of 2013 polls, to mere 3 seats. Most of the astonishing take of that election was Congress, which ruled Delhi for 15 years, was completely wiped out. Although, AAP won 54.3 per cent votes with an increase of 24.8 per cent compared to 2013 polls, but the BJP, despite getting only 3 seats compared to 31 it won in 2013, got almost the same 2013's vote percentage in 2015. The saffron party garnered 32.3 per cent — means a dip of only 0.7 per cent. On the other hand, the Congress and BSP saw more decline in its vote share with the former losing 14.9 per cent and the latter losing 4.1 per cent votes. So, it can be said that the BJP was able to keep its vote bank intact even at the face of AAP’s tsunami in 2015, while Congress and BSP failed to do so. In fact, as the figures point out, the AAP's resounding victory in 2015 was due to the rigid consolidation of Congress, BSP and other non-BJP votes in favour of it.

However, just like 2014 Lok Sabha elections, in 2019 general polls too, the voters of Delhi gave a strong verdict to the BJP by electing all the 7 MPs of the saffron party. But unlike in 2014, in 2019 Congress emerged the second largest party in vote share leaving the ruling party AAP behind. While the BJP got 56.58 per cent votes, the Congress managed to grab 22.6 per cent way ahead of 18 per cent of AAP, leaving Kejriwal's party disappointed. Of course, that were Lok Sabha elections and voting trends differ in assembly polls — which was even witnessed in 2015 Delhi assembly polls too.

Actually, the two most significant things that can't be ignored are — loss of Congress is gain of AAP and vice versa and BJP almost has an intact vote share of 30+ in Delhi.

No doubt, Kejriwal led government's policies on water, education and electricity have been quite popular with the poor and lower middle class sections. Apart from this, BJP led Union government's decision to regularise the unauthorised colonies has strengthened saffron party's position to compete with the AAP.

Nevertheless, Congress, which is lagging behind in the polarized race, as the political circles say, between AAP and BJP, can’t be ignored. In the recent times, the grand old party seems to have recovered some lost ground in Delhi as witnessed in last year's Lok Sabha polls. Congress is expecting to get the large portion of Muslims, who account for 13 per cent of the population, banking on the strong anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) stand of the party. The party has also allied with RJD eyeing the significant Bihari voters of Delhi. In fact, much would depend on Congress' performance whether AAP returns back to power or BJP ends its 22 years of exilement. (IPA Service)