India, Feb. 8 -- The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) last ruled the national capital in the 1990s. Today's Delhi is a different city. It changed from the "dusty town" of the '90s to a hugely cosmopolitan city attracting talent from across India, and the world, as the core of the National Capital Region (NCR). The early 2000s, under the stewardship of Congress chief minister Sheila Dixit, saw a major transformation of Delhi's physical space with the making of broad roads and significant greening. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), under the leadership of Arvind Kejriwal, won office for the first time in 2013, riding a wave of middle-class and upper-class discontent with the perceived corruption of the Congress.

Today, the desertion of middle- and up...