Delhi legislative assembly election, 2013

Delhi state assembly election, 2013

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All 70 seats in the Legislative Assembly of Delhi 36 seats needed for a majority
Opinion polls
First party Second party Third party   Leader Dr. Harsh Vardhan Arvind Kejriwal Sheila Dikshit Party BJP AAP INC Leader since 2012 2015 1998 Leader's seat Krishna Nagar New Delhi New Delhi (lost) Seats before 23  – 43 Seats after 31 28 8 Seat change 8 New 35 Percentage 33% 29.5% 24.6% Swing 3.4% 29.5% 15.7%
Map of Delhi showing results of the 2013 Vidhan Sabha election
Chief Minister before election Sheila Dikshit INC Elected Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal AAP

Sheila Dikshit
INC

Arvind Kejriwal
AAP

The Delhi Legislative Assembly election was held on 4 December 2013, with the result announced on 8 December resulting in formation of the Fifth Legislative Assembly of Delhi.

The Bharatiya Janata Party won a plurality, closely followed by Aam Aadmi Party, in its first election; this resulted in an hung assembly. After the BJP refused to form a government in the hung assembly, the Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) Arvind Kejriwal became chief minister with "unconditional" support from the Indian National Congress (INC).

This was one of the first five elections in which the Election Commission of India implemented a "None of the above" (NOTA) voting option, allowing the electorate to register a neutral vote but not to outright reject candidates. In a first, the Election Commission of India also appointed Central Awareness Observers, whose main task was to oversee voter awareness and facilitation.

There were 810 candidates running for office, including 224 independents.

BJP and SAD formed a pre-poll alliance; SAD contested four seats (Hari Nagar, Rajouri Garden, Kalkaji and Shahdara), while BJP contested the rest.

The AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal called the BJP's Harsh Vardhan the "Manmohan Singh of the BJP" as incapable of stemming the "rot" in Delhi's governance. He added: "We will help the people of Delhi get rid of Congress misgovernance first, and then ensure change at the national level in the Lok Sabha polls." However, Vardhan was supported by the BJP's prime ministerial candidate in the Indian general election, 2014, Narendra Modi. The Hindustan Times suggested that the Rajnath Singh-appointed BJP Delhi leader, Vijay Goel, though organisationally competent, lost favour due to his exclusion of established regional leaders in reorganising local units. Singh was still viewed as reluctant to "change horses in mid-stream" but agreed. Modi led the charge, with other party leaders, to have Vardhan as the chief ministerial candidate and Goel himself agreed to the nomination of Vardhan. The AAP released its first electoral manifesto.