All set for Rajinder Nagar bypoll, campaigning to gather steam

On Monday, the three main contenders-- Durgesh Pathak (AAP), Rajesh Bhatia (BJP) and Prem Lata (Congress) -- were among the 20 candidates to file nomination for the June 23 byelection.

New Delhi: Campaigning for the June 23 by-election to the Rajinder Nagar assembly constituency is expected to gather steam with the three main contenders filing their nominations on Monday. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) nominee, Durgesh Pathak, is seeking support on the development works carried out by the party’s government in Delhi, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress candidates -- both former municipal councillors from the area -- are betting on the ‘local connect’ and the works done under their tenure in the assembly segment.

The bypoll was necessitated as the seat was vacated by then MLA, AAP's Raghav Chadha, after his nomination to the Rajya Sabha. (ANI)

The Rajinder Nagar seat became vacant after the sitting AAP legislator Raghav Chadha was nominated to the Rajya Sabha from Punjab, after the party’s resounding win in the agrarian state.

The constituency is a unique mix of population with pockets of lower and upper middle class people, affluent avenues, jhuggi clusters and villages.

The result, which will be declared on June 26, will not affect the power equation in the Delhi assembly where the AAP holds a brute majority with 62 seats of the total 70, but experts believe that the since the polls are coming within a month of the unification of the municipal corporations, the result may help gauge the public mood. Also, they said, that it could be the only elections to be held this year with no development on the elections to the corporation, which could only happen after a long delimitation exercise.

For the BJP, a positive result could be a boost to their claims that the unification of MCD was a step in the right direction, and the Congress would like to use it as another opportunity to get a foothold in the Delhi assembly. The party has not been able to send a legislator to the House since 2015 assembly elections.

Poll issues

According to local residents, the issues in the constituency range from parking, bad shape of internal roads in many colonies, lack of parks, to poor water supply and chocked sewer.

Sunil Kumar Tanwar, a local from Naraina who runs a general store in the village, said: “We are not going to vote on the basis of the party, but on the basis of the candidate. The candidate who we find most promising and most sincere towards solving our problems, will get our votes,” said Tanwar.

Availability of water on low pressure is a common problem across the constituency. Deepak Baweja, president, S-Block (Double Storey) RWA New Rajinder Nagar, said poor supply of water was the main issue in the area. “The water is supplied only once in the day, that too at odd-hours, such as iat 4:45am. People need to wake up to fill up their overhead tanks. It is a long pending problem, no one has addressed it so far. We demand that water should be supplied at least twice,” said Baweja.

Suraj Mandal, a resident of Gas Godam Jhuggi ,said people were unable to sleep at night due to water crisis. “People line up as early as 3am to get water from the common tap. Sometimes the queue is so long that many people do not get water. Poor sanitation is also a big problem,” said Mandal.

The constituency has three villages -- Dasgarha (which is dominated by Jats), Todapur (a Yadav majority village) and Naraina (mixed demography), and nearly 12 slum clusters such as Gas Godam Jhuggi, Rajiv Gandhi Camp, Indira Camp, etc.

In most of the villages, lack of civic infrastructure and sanitation, chocked sewer lines are the key issues. “The sewer line has not been changed or upgraded in the last over 30 years even as the population density in the village has increased significantly. The government has started the replacement work but the circumference of the sewer line is not being increased. It means that the replacement will not solve the issue,” said Devender Tanwar, a resident of Naraina.

Community mix

Having fielded a Punjabi, Rajesh Bhatia, the BJP is trying to woo community voters in the middle and upper-middle class neighbourhoods of New Rajendra Nagar, Old Rajendra Nagar, Inderpuri and Naraina Vihar, where it holds strong. The constituency also has a sizable number of Purvanchali (people from eastern UP and Bihar) voters.

According to the election commission’s data, the BJP has maintained a steady vote share in the constituency with 33.28% in 2008, 35.82 in 2013, when it won the seat, 35.94% in 2015 and 37.70% in 2020. The AAP’s vote share, however, has only gone up from 34.2% in 2013 to 57% in 2020 when Raghav Chadha won the seat. The Congress’ vote share shows the party’s decline since 2008, when the party had won the seat, with 40.78% votes. Then, it reduced to 20.88% in 2013, 7.81% in 2015 and 3.8% in 2020.

Campaigning is on

Since a heatwave is sweeping through the national capital, the candidates are using the morning and evening hours for canvassing. In the morning, the candidates visit parks and catch up with the residents. “The people of the constituency are upset with the poor sanitation services which is a result of the misgovernance of the BJP in the municipal corporations for over 15 years. People have seen the development work done by the AAP government in Delhi. In the past seven years, the AAP has done a lot of work in the area. People are determined to vote for AAP once again,” said Durgesh Pathak, the AAP candidate.

The BJP candidate, Rajesh Bhatia, is raising local issues and trying to pitch it as a “local versus outsider” battle. “My family has lived here for decades and I have worked for the people in the area. But AAP’s candidate has no local connection. Pathak contested from Karawal Nagar in 2020, but lost. Now he has come here. Where will people go if they have a problem?” said Bhatia.

Pathak dismissed Bhatia’s claims and said the BJP candidate does not have issues to talk about.

The BJP has asked its local leaders to leave no stone unturned in winning from this seat. On Sunday Delhi BJP chief Adesh Gupta, leader of opposition Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, BJP MPs Manoj Tiwari, Gautam Gambhir addressed a gathering in Inderpuri to seeking support for Bhatia.

Congress candidate Prem Lata said she is the “daughter-in-law” of Dashghara village. “People have seen that AAP (Delhi government) and BJP (in MCD) have failed to deliver and they fondly remember the days of the Congress rule. They have made up their mind to vote out the AAP and bring in the Congress,” she said.