India, Feb. 9 -- Patparganj, a constituency that gave AAP's former deputy chief minister and supremo Arvind Kejriwal's right-hand man, Manish Sisodia, three consecutive terms but showed signs of shifting loyalties completed its transformation on Saturday. BJP's Ravinder Singh Negi defeated the party's Avadh Ojha by 28,072 votes, marking a decisive end to AAP's decade-long hold on this east Delhi seat.

In 2020, Sisodia scraped through with just 3,207 votes against the same opponent. On December 9, as the party released its second list of candidates and replaced the Sisodia with civil services coach-turned-politician Ojha, it banked on the latter's Purvanchali background in an attempt to shore up support in a constituency where demographic...