Delhi Election 2025: How slums & Muslim demographics shaped the AAP-BJP contest

New Delhi: The Delhi assembly elections witnessed a tough fight between Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the 70 seats. It was the demography and population structure in different seats that held the key and shaped the outcome of the battle.

Vote share in slum areas

There are approximately 3 lakh households in Delhi’s 675 slums and jhuggi-jhopadi (JJ) clusters, who constitute a sizeable 10% of the city’s electorate. Drinking water, sanitation, and solid waste are the key problems here.

The vote share in urban slum areas like Seemapuri, Trilokpuri, and Mangolpuri, and JJ clusters, including Kondli, Okhla, Narela, Badarpur, and Adarsh Nagar, assumed a lot of importance. The Axis My India exit poll predicted that in Delhi slums, 46% would go with BJP, 45% with AAP, and 7% with the Congress.

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If we go by the poll outcome, we will see that Veer Singh Dhingan of Aam Aadmi Party emerged victorious against Kumari Rinku of Bharatiya Janata Party and Rajesh Lilothia of Congress. This means the local residents favoured the AAP candidate over the BJP candidate.

Trilokpuri saw a keenly fought battle between Ravi Kant of Bharatiya Janata Party and Anjana Parcha of Aam Aadmi Party. Amardeep of Congress stood in the third position. Most local residents apparently cast their vote for the BJP candidate.

In Manolpuri, BJP’s Raj Kumar Chauhan won the seat, defeating Dharam Rakshak alias Rakesh Jatav of Aam Aadmi Party and Hanuman Sahay alias Hanuman Chauhan of Congress.

Kondli witnessed a close contest between Kuldeep Kumar (Monu) of Aam Aadmi Party and Priyanka Gautam of Bharatiya Janata Party. Akshay Kumar of Congress stood third. This shows that the local residents, mostly dwelling in slums, favoured the AAP.

In Okhla, AAP candidate romped home while BJP and Congress candidates had to bite the dust. BJP’s Raj Karan Khatri led in Nerela against Sharad Kumar of Aam Aadmi Party and Aruna of Congress. AAP won the Badarpur seat, while BJP and Congress candidates came in second and third.

In Adarsh Nagar, Raj Kumar Bhatia of Bharatiya Janata Party emerged victorious, while Mukesh Kumar Goel of
Aam Aadmi Party and Shivank Singal of Congress lost. This indicates the local people went with the BJP in this constituency.

Interestingly, since early 2024, the BJP had focused on a targeted outreach to slum areas, making it a key component of its campaign for the Delhi Assembly elections. AAP offered freebies to the people in this section.

How Muslim population likely voted

As many as seven seats namely Okhla, Babarpur, Mustafabad, Seelampur, Matia Mahal, Ballimaran, and Chandni Chowk, which Muslim population constituting over 40% of the vote share, played a crucial role in the poll outcome. The Axis My India Exit poll had predicted that 5% of Muslims would vote for BJP, while 74% of Muslims would cast their votes for AAP and 15% of Muslims for Congress. If we take a look at the poll results, the predictions seem quite close. Six AAP candidates won on seven seats in Muslim-dominated areas.

Okhla saw a rare contest between two Muslim candidates — Amanatullah Khan of AAP and Shife ur Rehman Khan of All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen. The other key candidate was Manish Chaudhary of BJP. Amanatullah Khan apparently had an upper hand, while Chaudhary came in second. This means the Muslim votes were divided between the AAP and AIMIM candidate and the BJP candidate didn’t find favour with most Muslims in Okhla. However, it was AAP that was the ultimate winner.

In Babarpur, Gopal Rai of Aam Aadmi Party defeated his nearest rival Anil Kumar Vashisht of Bharatiya Janata Party. Mohd Ishraq Khan of Indian National Congress and Md Nazir were distant third and fourth. The outcome indicates that most Muslims voted for the AAP candidate.

In Mustafabad, Mohan Singh Bisht of Bharatiya Janata Party edged past Adeel Ahmad Khan of Aam Aadmi Party and Mohd Tahir Hussain of All India Majlis-E-Ittehadul Muslimeen. This suggests that a majority of Muslims favoured the BJP candidate here.

In Seelampur, Chaudhary Zubair Ahmad of Aam Aadmi Party was all set to win against Anil Kumar Sharma (Gaur)
of Bharatiya Janata Party and Abdul Rehman of Indian National Congress. The results indicate that Muslims largely voted for the AAP candidate, as the Axis exit poll had also suggested.

In Matia Mahal, Aaley Mohammed Iqbal of Aam Aadmi Party won against Deepti Indora of Bharatiya Janata Party and Asim Ahmed Khan of the Congress. This goes a long way to show that most Muslims voted for the AAP candidate, as indicated by the exit poll.

In Ballimaran, Imran Hussain of Aam Aadmi Party defeated his nearest rival Kamal Bagri of BJP and Haroon Yusuf of Congress. Hussain bagged 57,004 votes and won by a margin of 29,823 votes. This suggests that the Muslim vote share went for the AAP’s candidate, while the BJP candidate was their second pick.

Chandni Chowk saw a fierce contest between AAP candidate Punardeep Singh Sawhney (Sabby) and Satish Jain of BJP. Khalid Ur Rehman of Congress was a distant fifth. Sawhney’s win suggests that most Muslims favoured the AAP candidate here too.

Delhi Election Results 2025 Coverage