Challenges not new to him

From being the president of Delhi University Students’ Union in 1985 to becoming the Minister of State for Urban Development, the political career of Ajay Maken has seen steady progress.

Ajay maken (45)

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From being the president of Delhi University Students’ Union in 1985 to becoming the Minister of State for Urban Development, the political career of Ajay Maken has seen steady progress.

He is known for his clean image and fire fighting abilities that came to the fore when Delhi switched to CNG, during privatisation of the power distribution system and during the creation of Delhi’s Master Plan. Maken defeated BJP stalwart Jagmohan in the last election and appeared confident about this time too.

“I’m fighting on my positive performance and don’t believe in making empty promises. Let my opponent also talk about his performance,” he said. “Whenever I have held ministerial positions, I have faced challenges,” he said, referring to his stint as Delhi’s Transport Minister and also as the Urban Development Minister.

It is not going to be a cakewalk for Maken though. The mainly babu constituency that voted him to power last time now includes many areas with sizeable number of BJP supporters after delimitation. Out of the ten assembly constituencies that form New Delhi parliamentary constituency, Karol Bagh, Delhi Cantt, Moti Nagar and Greater Kailash have BJP MLAs.

“Apart from Greater Kailash assembly seat, rest of South Delhi is with us. V.K. Malhotra won from Greater Kailash because he was the chief ministerial candidate,” he said.

“Under the Master Plan, there is not a single house that hasn’t benefitted,” he said. Maken said allegations that he was not accessible and didn’t visit his constituency were baseless.

Many government employees are not happy with the Sixth Pay Commission recommendations and Maken admits that. “The pay commission should have been set up in 2003, during the NDA regime. There are certain anomalies but those would be fixed,” he said.