Look forward to working closely with the Centre, Arvind Kejriwal said in his reply to PM Modi (File)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday congratulated Arvind Kejriwal for the Aam Aadmi Party's landslide victory in the Delhi Assembly election. Mr Kejriwal, in a prompt reply on Twitter, accepted PM's wishes and said he is looking forward to work with the Centre for the development of the national capital.

"Thank you so much sir. I look forward to working closely with the Centre to make our capital city a truly world class city," Arvind Kejriwal tweeted.

Thank u so much sir. I look forward to working closely wid Centre to make our capital city into a truly world class city. https://t.co/IACEVA091c — Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) February 11, 2020

Mr Kejriwal's party looks likely to win a sweeping 60-plus seats, marginally short of the 67 seats it won in 2015. The BJP, which was hoping for around 55 seats, might end up with less than 10 - an outcome many opposition leaders have hailed as a defeat of divisive politics.

Mr Kejriwal has called his Delhi triumph the victory of a new "kind of politics".

"People of Delhi have given a message that they will vote for schools, mohalla clinics, 24-hour electricity and free water. This is a great message for the country," he said today, addressing a huge crowd at the AAP office.

During the poll campaign, the BJP had attacked Mr Kejriwal claiming he was supporting the Shaheen Bagh protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act. Yogi Adityanath, the BJP's star campaigner, in a jibe, had said the AAP chief was distributing biryani among the anti-CAA protesters.

PM Modi had also attacked the protesters. "Whether it is Seelampur, Jamia or Shaheen Bagh, there have been multiple protests against the CAA. Do you think these protests are a coincidence? It is not. It is all an experiment rooted in politics. If it was simply about a law, it would have ended," he had said at a Delhi rally.

Mr Kejriwal, however, maintained his distance with the protest. In an interview to NDTV, he had dared Union Minister Amit Shah to clear Shaheen Bagh, an arterial road that links Delhi and Noida. "He is so powerful. Can he not open a road?" he had said.

A number of opposition leaders have said the mandate indicated that the BJP's brand of politics has been rejected by Delhi. "The BJP with all their might, money and agencies could not do anything. They have absolutely drowned, they have been pumelled. Across India, their empire is shrinking," Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said.