Delhi polls: Congress poured in funds to close gap with BJP, but spent one-third of its rival on candidates

Indian Express

26-05-2025

The BJP emerged as the top spender in the recent Delhi Assembly elections, declaring an overall expenditure of Rs 57 crore. While that was expected, the Congress closed the gap in expenditure.
In 2020, the BJP declared an overall expenditure of Rs 41.06 crore, 48 percentage points more than that of the Congress's Rs 27.67 crore. This year, the Congress boosted its spending, declaring Rs 46.18 crore as its overall election expenditure, 25 percentage points behind the BJP. According to the BJP's election expenditure report submitted to the Election Commission (EC), the party spent Rs 39.14 crore on general party propaganda while Rs 18.5 crore was spent on its candidates. The Congress spent more on the general party campaign, Rs 40.13 crore, and just Rs 6.05 crore on candidates.
According to a previous report by The Indian Express, the BJP had also outspent its opponents by at least three times for advertising on Meta platforms for one month in the run-up to Assembly polls. While the BJP, its candidates, and affiliates that ran ads in its favour collectively spent Rs 4.15 crore on advertising in Delhi, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was a distant second, spending Rs 1.38 crore. The Congress spent Rs 66.62 lakh.
Of the Rs 4.15 crore spent by the BJP on advertising, 91.8% included material put up by its Delhi unit's official handle. In contrast to this, the AAP spent 63.3% through its official handle, with the rest being spent by candidates and affiliates. The Congress's Delhi handle also did the heavy lifting for the party, spending 88.7% or Rs 59.13 lakh out of a total Rs 66 lakh spent on advertising.
The BJP's Delhi unit started the 2025 polls with a balance of Rs 89.92 crore and received an additional Rs 93.42 lakh during the election period. It ended the polls with a balance of Rs 91.1 crore.
The AAP, which went into the February election as the incumbent, spent the least – Rs 14.51 crore – among the three main parties. Of the AAP's expenditure, Rs 12.12 crore went towards general party propaganda while Rs 2.39 crore was spent on candidates. In 2020, it had declared Rs 21.06 crore as its overall election expenditure.
The BJP's winning candidates too spent more as compared to their AAP counterparts, a report by the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) had revealed earlier this month.
With an expenditure limit of Rs 40 lakh, 31 (45%) MLAs declared that they had spent less than half of the permissible limit in their constituencies.
The report said that the party-wise expenses showed that the average spending by the 47 analysed MLAs of the BJP was Rs 24.68 lakh (61.7% of the limit), while the AAP's 22 MLAs spent Rs 12.48 lakh each (31.2% of the limit). The Congress did not win a single seat in the Assembly polls.
The top three highest-spending MLAs were all from the BJP. Anil Kumar Sharma, who contested from R K Puram, reported the highest expenditure at Rs 31.91 lakh (80% of the limit), followed closely by Parduymn Singh Rajput from Dwarka at Rs 31.44 lakh (79%), and Ashish Sood from Janakpuri at Rs 30.68 lakh (77%).
The candidates who spent the least amount of money were all from the AAP: Aaley Mohammed Iqbal from Matia Mahal spent Rs 4.53 lakh (11%) of the permissible amount, Veer Singh Dhingan from Seema Puri spent Rs 6.5 lakh (16%), and Virender Singh Kadian from Delhi Cantonment spent Rs 6.54 lakh (16%), the report said.
The BJP, winning 48 of the 70 seats, returned to power in Delhi after over two-and-a-half decades while the AAP finished second with 22 seats. The Congress, for the third consecutive time, failed to open its account in the capital.