Atishi resigns as Delhi Chief Minister after AAP's crushing defeat in assembly elections

New Delhi: A day after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) suffered a crushing defeat in the Delhi assembly elections, Chief Minister Atishi on Sunday tendered her resignation to the Lt Governor VK Saxena.

The Raj Niwas Delhi on its social media handle X said, "Hon'ble Lt Governor, Shri VK Saxena today received the resignation of Hon'ble CM, Ms Atishi. He asked her to continue in her position till the formation of the new government."

Though Atishi managed to retain her Kalkaji assembly constituency by defeating BJP's Ramesh Bidhuri, her party, however, suffered a massive defeat in the just-concluded Delhi assembly elections.

The AAP, which had stormed to power in 2013 as a new entrant in politics, managed to win only 22 seats this time against 62 it had in the outgoing Assembly.

Its performance was so bad that even its Founder-National Convenor and former Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal lost from the prestigious New Delhi constituency from where he had been elected thrice consecutively earlier.

By winning 48 seats in the 70-member Assembly, which had gone to the hustings on February 5, the BJP got a two-thirds majority for the first time in 31 years. Earlier, in the November 1993 Assembly polls, it secured 49 seats.