The newly founded Aam Aadmi Party came close behind the Bharatiya Janata Party in its very first election, leaving Delhi with a hung house — a result where no single party wins enough seats to govern alone.¹

The BJP won 31 of the 70 seats.

That fell short of the 36-seat majority mark.

The AAP was not far behind, with 28 seats.

The BJP also led on votes, with 33.1% to the AAP's 29.5%, a gap too thin to settle who would govern.

In March 2013 Arvind Kejriwal fasted to protest inflated electricity bills in Delhi and urged residents not to pay them, turning power tariffs into a campaign issue against the incumbent Congress government.²

On 4 October 2013 the Election Commission set a single-phase Delhi poll for 4 December, results due 8 December. The Aam Aadmi Party named Arvind Kejriwal its chief ministerial candidate the next day. The Bharatiya Janata Party followed on 23 October, naming Harsh Vardhan as its candidate, backed by Narendra Modi and the RSS.³⁴⁵

The BJP and the Shiromani Akali Dal contested together, with SAD fielding candidates in 4 of the 70 seats while BJP took the remaining 66.⁶

On 20 November the Aam Aadmi Party's manifesto promised to pass the Jan Lokpal anti-corruption bill within 15 days of forming a government.⁷

Voting took place on 4 December, when the Election Commission offered NOTA — None of the Above, a ballot option letting voters formally reject every candidate on offer — in a Delhi election for the first time, alongside several other states.⁸

The Indian National Congress's run in Delhi collapsed.

It had won 3 elections in a row before this one.

Most movement flowed from INC to BJP: 17 of the 51 seats that changed hands went that way.

Within weeks the AAP formed a minority government with outside support from INC, and Arvind Kejriwal became Chief Minister.¹

Turnout, the share of registered voters who actually cast a ballot, climbed +8.4 pp from the previous election.

The closest race was at R K Puram, Delhi, decided by 326 votes.

Krishna Nagar, Delhi was the widest win of the night, taking 36.4% of the vote.

Seema Puri, Delhi recorded the highest turnout, at 72.6%.

Matiala, Delhi was the largest constituency by registered voters, with 3,02,877 names on the rolls.

Burari, Delhi drew the most candidates, 23 names on the ballot.

NOTA drew 49,884 votes statewide, 0.6% of the total.

Delhi's Legislative Assembly was restored under the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act, 1991, after a 37-year gap, with the first election to the new 70-seat Assembly held in 1993.⁹

Land, police and public order stayed with the central government even after the restoration.⁹

The AAP, formed from the 2011 anti-corruption movement, contested for the first time in this election.¹