Delhi will elect a new Assembly in February 2020 with the main contestants being the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress. The national capital has a 70-member Assembly and in the last election in 2015 for the sixth Assembly, the newly-formed AAP stormed to power by winning 67 of them. The BJP was a distant second with only three seats while the Congress was completely decimated and ended with a big zero.
Delhi had witnessed an election in December 2013 too where no party managed to secure a majority. The BJP was the single-largest with 31 seats, AAP a close second with 28 and the Congress was blown away with only eight seats in its kitty. After a brief period of uncertainty and with the BJP refusing to form a government as it did not have the majority along with its ally - the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) which had one MLA - the AAP under Arvind Kejriwal's chief ministership staked claim with the outside support of Congress.
Kejriwal resigned after 49 days in power and the Delhi Assembly was kept in suspended animation and President's Rule imposed. The next assembly election was held on February 7, 2015, and the result was declared three days later.
However, in 2014 as well as the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the BJP had swept all the seven constituencies of Delhi.
While BJP is banking on the strong showing in the Lok Sabha election just eight months ago, the AAP is claiming the development initiatives by the Arvind Kejriwal government will result in the party retaining power. AAP had on December 20, 2019, launched its Delhi assembly election campaign with the slogan "Achhe beete 5 saal, lage raho Kejriwal".
BJP is yet to name its chief ministerial candidate while the Congress has brought in Subhash Chopra as its party chief in Delhi. Chopra was a three-time MLA from Kalkaji Assembly constituency. He had won in 1998, 2003 and 2008.
