NEW DELHI — Less than a year after Narendra Modi won a historic victory to become India’s new prime minister, a smaller political earthquake struck the capital on Tuesday, as partial results indicated that Mr. Modi’s governing party had been crushed in local elections by a young political organization led by an anticorruption campaigner.
With early returns suggesting that the Aam Aadmi Party, or Common Man Party, would win as many as 67 of the 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly, Mr. Modi called the party’s leader, Arvind Kejriwal, on Tuesday morning to congratulate him.
Mr. Kejriwal, a former tax examiner, briefly served as Delhi’s chief minister a year ago, but he resigned after just 49 days — one of a series of apparent missteps he had made since coming to prominence as a crusader against graft, including a cantankerous split with his first political patron and, last year, a decision to create a national party that would compete across India for parliamentary seats, which largely failed.
But Mr. Kejriwal’s 70-point manifesto promising to improve the lives of Delhi’s vast underclass — through a crackdown on corruption, as well as by offering cheaper electricity, free water and more accessible schools — resonated strongly across the city in the voting held Saturday.
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Randeep Surjewala, a Congress party spokesman, said his party’s inability to win a single seat in a chamber it dominated for 15 years should lead to some introspection.
“We need to see why we are losing our essential base to other parties,” including the Aam Aadmi Party, Mr. Surjewala said.
Ellen Barry and Hari Kumar contributed reporting.
