BJP and Congress field former councillors in Rajinder Nagar bypoll fight

The Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress on Saturday announced Rajesh Bhatia and Prem Lata respectively as their candidates against the ruling Aam Aadmi Party’s Durgesh Pathak for the June 23 bypoll.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Congress on Saturday fielded former local councillors Rajesh Bhatia and Prem Lata respectively as their candidates against Aam Aadmi Party’s Durgesh Pathak in the Rajinder Nagar assembly bypoll on June 23.

AAP leader and former Rajinder Nagar MLA Raghav Chadha, whose nomination to Rajya Sabha necessitated the upcoming byelections. (HT File Photo)

Both Bhatia and Prem Lata were councillors from Rajinder Nagar and Pusa Road wards respectively.

A former Delhi BJP general secretary, Bhatia was also the chairman of the North Corporation’s standing committee. He was also involved in the functioning of the party’s state unit during the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The bypoll was necessitated after the assembly seat fell vacant when the sitting AAP MLA, Raghav Chadha was nominated to the Rajya Sabha from Punjab in March.

Though the bypoll result will not have a significant impact on the party positions in the Delhi assembly where the AAP has 62 MLAs, it will be considered as indicator of the public mood after the unification of the three municipal corporations. As the municipal polls have been deferred due to unification of the three civic bodies, this may be the only election to be held in Delhi this year.

The BJP is making the upcoming poll a “local versus outsider” battle as it says that Pathak doesn’t live in the area. Bhatia said, “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. He earlier contested from Karawal Nagar in 2020 and now has come here. Where will people go if they have a problem?” said Bhatia.

Durgesh Pathak hit back and said, “The BJP doesn’t have any real issues to talk about. This election is going to be about the work development done by the AAP government in Delhi versus the 15 years of misgovernance by the BJP in the municipal corporations. In the past seven years, the AAP has done a lot of work in the area. People know what the situation was before AAP came to power in 2015.”

The BJP has been holding all important events, including the Shobha Yatra to mark the party’s foundation day which was attended by BJP president JP Nadda in April, in the constituency since the seat fell vacant in March.

The BJP has been trying to win back its stronghold since 2008 —BJP represented the constituency from 1993 till 2008—when it lost the constituency to Congress’ Ramakant Goswami. Though BJP’s national spokesperson RP Singh won the seat in 2013, but assemble elections were held again in 2015. AAP’s Vijender Garg won the constituency in 2015 followed by Chadha in 2020, both local residents.

Congress, which was in power for 15 years in Delhi, sees this as an opportunity to have its representative in the Delhi Assembly after a gap of nearly eight years.

Delhi Congress vice president Abhishek Dutt said that the people of the area are fed up of AAP and BJP as both have failed to deliver. “The sitting AAP MLA (Chadha) left the constituency as he got a Rajya Sabha and now they have got an outsider. Prem Lata knows the area well as she has been a councillor. In municipal bypolls last year, our vote share increased from 3% to 23% and BJP was rejected. We are confident of our victory in this bypoll, as we have a strong candidate.”

During Delhi assembly elections in 2020, Chadha won the seat by a large margin of 20,058 votes against his rival RP Singh of the BJP. The Congress had fielded student leader Rocky Tuseed from the seat.

With nearly 41% families in the area belonging to the Punjabi community, the Rajinder Nagar assembly segment was once one of the colonies developed by the government to rehabilitate Punjabi refugees after the Partition.

The constituency has a mix of middle and upper middle-income group families in localities such as the New Rajendra Nagar, Old Rajendra Nagar and Pandav Nagar. The seat has three designated villages as well -- Dasgarha (dominated by Jats), Todapur (Yadav majority) and Naraina (mixed demography). It also has a sizeable population living in slums.

While a few pockets in New Rajendra Nagar (R-block, double storey) have traditionally been a BJP stronghold, several neighbourhoods such as Old Rajendra Nagar, Inderpuri and Naraina Vihar have seen a change in the demography over the years. Several families living in these areas are tenants households, and this is marked by a rise in the Purvanchali voters (people from eastern UP and Bihar).