Safety of women priority in south Delhi, says AAP

In October last year, the AAP had named in-charges for all seven Lok Sabha constituencies in Delhi. Chadha was one of them.

Women safety and law and order in the southern fringes of the city will be taken up on priority by the Aam Aadmi Party in the Lok Sabha elections, said Raghav Chadha, AAP candidate from South Delhi constituency. He added that the wants to convert women into a potential “vote bank”.

Two women at a demonstration of EVM and VVPAT machines by Election Commission officials on Wednesday. (Sanchit Khanna/HT Photo)

Talking about his campaign, Chadha, a chartered accountant by profession and a member of AAP since its formation, said, “We were organising gram sabhas and mohalla sabhas since October 2018 to ascertain the priority issues.”

“We considered all Vidhan Sabha areas and the most pressing issue turned out to be women safety. We also found it was women who were most concerned about the issues of women safety and lawlessness,” said Chadha.

In October last year, the AAP had named in-charges for all seven Lok Sabha constituencies in Delhi. Chadha was one of them. Later, six out of the seven incharges went on to become the party candidate from the Lok Sabha seat allotted to them, with West Delhi being an exception.

“Then we developed strategies, under which I first had to break down the idea of full statehood for Delhi and relate that to the issues of policing, law and order and women safety in every public gathering or rally,” Chadha said.

Full statehood is the AAP’s primary poll plank in Delhi.

The South Delhi seat was won by Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Ramesh Bidhuri in the 2014 elections.While Delhi goes to the polls on May 12, the BJP and the Congress have not yet announced their candidates to the seven Lok Sabha seats yet.

According to Chadha, who has a number of Muslim and Dalit-dominated areas, villages and unauthorised colonies in his Lok Sabha constituency, the strategy to focus on women voters is “working well”. “Men normalise violence to a great extent and that is why the idea of lawlessness, hooliganism and women safety clicks more among women,” he added.