Zahir TCPD Column

Rise to Power: An In-Depth Look at the 2022 Delhi Municipal Elections
Mohammed Zahir Ali
The 2022 Delhi Municipal Corporation elections marked a significant turning point in the
political landscape of the city. The incumbent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) lost ground to the
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), as the latter saw an unprecedented increase in their seat share,
rising from 18% in the 2017 elections to a commanding 54% in 2022. Meanwhile, the BJP's
seat share fell from 67% in 2017 to 42% in 2022. Despite the BJP's slight lead in the 104
unreserved wards, the AAP ultimately emerged victorious, securing a commanding advantage
of 30 seats through a preponderance of wins in the reserved wards. This article provides a
deeper dive into the 2022 Delhi Municipal Elections, exploring candidate demographics as a
key factor that could have potentially played a role in the outcome of the election.
The 2022 Delhi Municipal Elections saw 15 different parties vying for power across 250
wards. The AAP and BJP were the biggest players, contesting all 250 wards, while the Indian
National Congress (INC) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) focused on fewer wards. Of the
250 wards, 146 (58.4%) were reserved. As seen in Figure 1, in the 104 open wards, the BJP
came out on top with 51 seats, followed by AAP with 48 seats and the INC with just 4 seats.
However, in the 104 women quota wards, AAP had a slight edge with 50 seats compared to
the BJP's 47 seats. The INC secured just 5 seats in these wards.
Figure 1. Seats won by parties in Open and Women Quota
AAP also dominated in the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Caste - Women category wards,
winning a significant number of seats. Unfortunately, the INC didn't fare as well and failed to
secure any seats in the 20 SC and 21 SC-Women reservation wards that it contested.
Figure 2. Seats won by parties in SC and SC-Women Quota
Among the 629 candidates vying for office in 104 open wards, only 82 were women,
constituting a meager 13% of the total pool. Similarly, in the SC category wards, out of the
111 contesting candidates, a mere 18 were women, accounting for 16.2% of the total.
However, there is reason to be optimistic. The BSP fielded the most women candidates
compared to all other parties, both in absolute magnitude and in proportion to their total
number of contestants, in both the open and SC category wards. With 14 women candidates
in total, the BSP surpassed its competitors in terms of promoting gender diversity in
politics.While these figures indicate that there is still progress to be made, it is encouraging to
see certain political parties leading the charge in promoting more equitable representation in
the electoral process.
Figure 3. Gender Ratio of Candidates across parties
While it is certainly disappointing to learn that despite efforts to promote gender diversity,
only 13 women (10.4%) were elected in the combined 125 open and SC category wards in
the recent elections - there is some good news - the representation of women in the Municipal
Corporation of Delhi committee now stands at 138 (55.2%) after the 2022 elections.
There were interesting insights with respect to the candidates’ educational backgrounds as
well. As seen in figure 4, the AAP fielded a high proportion of candidates with a graduate
degree (34.4%) and fewer candidates with postgraduate degrees (9.2%). The BJP, on the
other hand, had a higher proportion of candidates with postgraduate degrees (15.6%) but
fewer with graduate degrees (26.4%). The INC had a similar proportion of graduate and
post-graduate candidates, with a slightly higher proportion of candidates with a high school
education. The BSP had the lowest proportion of candidates with higher education degrees,
but a higher proportion of candidates with a high school education or less.
Figure 4. Educational Background of Candidates across Parties
The educational qualifications of candidates can significantly affect the election outcome.
The AAP's higher proportion of candidates with graduate degrees may have given them an
advantage, while the BSP's lower proportion of candidates with higher education may have
hurt their performance.

Unlike the previous election, only three political parties and some independents won seats in
the 2022 election. Back in 2017, the BJP had a big win, while the remaining seats were split
among five other political parties and some independent candidates. In 2022, despite a higher
number of women candidates, barely a tenth were proportionally elected in the combined
open and SC category wards. The women’s representation in the MCD saw an increase, a
majority of whom were elected from the women quota wards, underscoring the crucial role of
quotas in increasing women's representation in power. The 2022 Delhi Municipal Elections
held many important changes that impacted the outcome of the election - the most notable
being the delimitation which brought about a decrease in the number of wards from 272 to
250, and the combination of the North, East, and South municipal corporations into a single
one. And this rendered any one-to-one comparison at the ward level between the 2017 and
2022 elections difficult.

References:
Data Citation: “TCPD-CASI Urban Local Body Dataset (TCPD-CASI-ULB), 2008-2021”.
Trivedi Centre for Political Data, Ashoka University and Center for the Advanced Study of
India, University of Pennsylvania.
Codebook Citation: Neelesh Agrawal, Adam Auerbach, Mohammed Zahir Ali, Srishti Gupta,
Mohit Kumar, Aditya Sarkar, Tariq Thachil, Gilles Verniers, and S. V. Sai Vikas. 2022.
“TCPD-CASI Urban Local Body Dataset (TCPD-CASI-ULB), 2008-2021 Codebook 1.0″,
Trivedi Centre for Political Data, Ashoka University, Center for the Advanced Study of India,
University of Pennsylvania.
Acknowledgements:
I would like to extend my thanks to Srishti Gupta and the entire TCPD team for their
guidance and support throughout.
About:
Zahir is a fourth year ASP student at Ashoka University and a Research Associate at TCPD,
having worked on the Urban Local Bodies dataset project since its inception. Throughout his
interdisciplinary academic journey, he has dabbled in Psychology, Computer Science and
Economics. He is particularly interested in working with Political and Economic data.

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Rise to Power: An In-Depth Look at the 2022 Delhi Municipal Elections

Mohammed Zahir Ali

Figure 2. Seats won by parties in SC and SC-Women Quota

the electoral process.

Figure 3. Gender Ratio of Candidates across parties

but a higher proportion of candidates with a high school education or less.

Figure 4. Educational Background of Candidates across Parties

hurt their performance.

2022 elections difficult.

Data Citation: “TCPD-CASI Urban Local Body Dataset (TCPD-CASI-ULB), 2008-2021”.

India, University of Pennsylvania.

“TCPD-CASI Urban Local Body Dataset (TCPD-CASI-ULB), 2008-2021 Codebook 1.0″,

guidance and support throughout.

interdisciplinary academic journey, he has dabbled in Psychology, Computer Science and

Economics. He is particularly interested in working with Political and Economic data.

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