Narendra Modi’s party has claimed victory in state polls in Delhi, regaining control of the capital’s regional government for the first time in almost three decades and buoying the prime minister ahead of a meeting with Donald Trump next week.
Delhi, a territory of 22mn that includes India’s seat of government in New Delhi, has long eluded Modi. While his Bharatiya Janata party holds all of the territory’s seats in the national parliament, its legislative assembly was most recently controlled by the populist Aam Aadmi party.
The BJP secured at least 40 seats out of a total of 70 in Wednesday’s election, according to results published on Saturday by India’s election commission. It has the lead in another eight seats and is heading for a landslide. The AAP took at least 17 seats.
The country’s main opposition party, the Indian National Congress — dominated by the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty — had ruled the city-state for 15 years before ceding it to the AAP, but this time it did not win a single seat.
The victory cements Modi’s resurgent political momentum following wins in two state elections late last year, after his party lost its parliamentary majority in national polls in June.
The 74-year-old prime minister was exultant, telling supporters it was a “resounding and historic mandate” for the BJP.
His party’s return to power in Delhi for the first time since 1998 shows that “even though the prime minister suffered a setback in 2024 national elections, his popularity still remains intact by and large, giving a big impetus to him personally, his standing nationally and his standing internationally”, said Neerja Chowdhury, a Delhi-based political analyst.
Analysts said the BJP benefited from a divided opposition. Its campaign sought to appeal to middle-class voters, who account for almost 70 per cent of the region’s population. The poll came days after Modi’s government introduced tax breaks for middle-income Indians.
India’s growth is still the fastest among major world economies, but it has been hampered by lacklustre urban consumption, sluggish job growth and stubborn food price inflation.
The Reserve Bank of India cut interest rates on Friday for the first time in five years in an attempt to boost the slowing economy, which the government forecasts will grow 6.4 per cent in the 2024-25 fiscal year, down from 8.2 per cent in 2023-24.
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Modi is preparing to travel to Washington next week to meet Trump. The leaders cultivated a close relationship during the US president’s first term, and New Delhi has been a strategic partner in Washington’s efforts to counter an increasingly assertive Beijing.
But India will also be wary of becoming a target of Trump’s trade animosity. The US president on Friday threatened to impose “reciprocal” tariffs on US trade partners next week, without specifying any targets. The US is India’s second-largest trading partner, just behind China, and New Delhi recorded a $35bn trade surplus with Washington between January and November 2024.
India this week slashed duties on US imports including Harley-Davidson motorcycles, a longtime Trump complaint. It also accepted the return of more than 100 undocumented Indian migrants, sparking local outrage over allegations that some were mistreated on a US military flight.
Analysts said the BJP’s victory in Delhi was particularly significant and could even resonate in Washington.
“Delhi is very critical,” said Chowdhury, because it hosts “the second-largest city in the world and because of its geographic location in the heart of India, its politics and what happens here naturally attracts the attention of the country and the international community”.