Delhi CM Kejriwal seeks votes for party’s Rajinder Nagar candidate

Addressing his first roadshow in poll-bound Rajinder Nagar, Delhi chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal implored residents of the area to vote for the party’s candidate Durgesh Pathak, if they wanted “someone serious about getting their work done

Addressing his first roadshow in poll-bound Rajinder Nagar, Delhi chief minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal implored residents of the area to vote for the party’s candidate Durgesh Pathak, if they wanted “someone serious about getting their work done.”

AAP supremo and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal. (HT Photo)

“I am giving you the guarantee of getting all the work in the constituency done. I do what I promise,” he said, even as he criticised the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), accusing the saffron party of “igniting conflicts”.

He is scheduled to address a roadshow each on Saturday and Sunday as well in the west Delhi area, which will vote on June 23 in a bypoll necessitated after the earlier incumbent, AAP’s Raghav Chadha resigned after being nominated to the Rajya Sabha.

“If you want an MLA who interested in rabble-rousing, press the lotus symbol [referring to the BJP’s symbol],” Kejriwal said during a short roadshow in Karol Bagh’s WEA area, which is under the Rajinder Nagar assembly constituency.

Delhi BJP spokesperson Praveen Shankar Kapoor said the AAP is on a very “weak footing” in Rajinder Nagar.

“The people of Delhi know very well that the AAP is an anarchic party. Citizens of Delhi have seen that it’s the BJP that despite being in the opposition [in the state] has contributed more towards Delhi’s development through the central government,” Kapoor said.

He asked people to make sure the AAP, which won the last two assembly elections — in 2015 and 2020 — from Rajinder Nagar, wins with double the margin they did last time.

In 2020, the AAP’s Chadha beat BJP’s candidate RP Singh by over 20,000 votes.

“Don’t fall for the BJP. They do not know anything other than igniting conflicts. Wherever BJP has won, the people are perturbed. BJP leaders keep fighting 24 hours. I don’t know how to fight, I only know how to work,” Kejriwal said.

The BJP and Congress have both fielded former councillors — Rajesh Bhatia and Prem Lata respectively — both of whom have also intensified their electioneering. The votes will be counted on June 26.

Residents said the ongoing water crisis, a parking shortage, damaged internal roads and a lack of sanitation were among the key problems affecting the west Delhi area.

The constituency is split into pockets of lower and upper middle-class people, affluent avenues, slum clusters and villages.

The result of the bypoll will not affect the power equation in the Delhi assembly where the AAP holds a comfortable majority with 62 seats of the total 70. However, 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. The state election commission is giving final touches to the preparations for the by-election scheduled for June 23. A total of 164,698 electors are expected to cast their votes to elect the new legislator from among the 14 candidates in the fray.