The Congress played spoilsport for former INDIA bloc ally AAP in around 10 closely fought constituencies despite failing to win a single seat in Delhi, further fracturing the grouping that had positioned itself as an alternative to the Narendra Modi juggernaut.

The Congress secured a 6.34 per cent vote share this election, nearly 2 per cent higher than the Assembly elections in 2020. The difference in vote share between the BJP and the AAP is nearly 2 per cent, which is the same as the rise in the Congress’s vote pie.

The Congress dealt the AAP a major blow particularly in three seats — New Delhi, Jangpura and Greater Kailash where heavyweights Arvind Kejriwal, Manish Sisodia and Saurabh Bharadwaj were defeated by small margins.

Atishi, however, retained her Kalkaji seat by a margin of 3,521 votes, defeating the BJP’s Ramesh Bidhuri. But the fact that the Congress’s Alka Lamba received 4,392 votes cannot be overlooked as a few more votes could have damaged Atishi’s prospects too.

Kejriwal, who got 25,999 votes, lost his New Delhi seat to BJP MP Parvesh Verma by 4,089 votes. Congress candidate Sandeep Dikshit, son of former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, came third with 4,568 votes, 479 more than the margin of Kejriwal’s defeat.

Sisodia, who got 38,184 votes, finished second by a tiny margin of 675 votes against the BJP’s Tarvinder Singh Marwah. Third-placed Congress candidate Farhad Suri secured 7,350 votes. Bharadwaj lost the Greater Kailash seat to the BJP’s Shikha Roy by a margin of 3,188 votes whereas Congress candidate Garvit Singhvi got 6,711 votes.

A major setback for the AAP came in the Kasturba Nagar seat where the Congress outperformed the former ruling party and secured the second position. The BJP’s Neeraj Basoya won the seat by bagging 11,048 votes.

Two other AAP biggies — Somnath Bharti and Durgesh Pathak — failed to save the Malviya Nagar and Rajinder Nagar constituencies. Here too, the Congress received more votes than the winning margin.

Sangam Vihar, the seat with the lowest winning margin of 344 votes, Mehrauli, Timarpur and Trilokpuri were among the other seats where the AAP-Congress split gave an edge to the BJP for a clear majority.

The Congress and the AAP were part of the INDIA bloc in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections but went separate ways for the Delhi elections. The Congress dominated Delhi from 1998 to 2013. In 2008, the Congress had a vote share of 40 per cent. The AAP in 2013, however, led to the Congress’s downfall in Delhi with the national party yet to get back on its feet here since then.

Even in 2013, the Congress won eight seats and its vote share was 24.5 per cent. In 2015, the party got around 9 per cent vote share, which declined to 4.26 per cent in 2020.

INDIA bloc ally and Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Omar Abdullah took on the INDIA block for the skirmishes among allies, appearing oblivious to the fact that he had pushed out Mehbooba Mufti’s PDP, another constituent of the grouping, in the Assembly elections earlier this year.

“Jee bhar kar lado. Samaapt kardo ek dusre ko! (Fight to your heart’s content. Finish off each other),” Omar, whose father Farooq Abdullah had campaigned for the Congress for the Delhi polls, posted on X.

In Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s first election rally, he had likened Kejriwal to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over their perceived silence on a greater role for the backward classes and minorities. Kejriwal had struck back, accusing the Congress of siphoning off his party’s vote.