The Delhi elections roadmap

Delhi voters are gearing up for the final countdown on May 10 with candidates ending their campaign on a feverish pitch.

Updated on: May 9, 2004, 03:42:00 IST

PTI | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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Delhi voters are gearing up for the final countdown on May 10 with candidates ending their campaign on a feverish pitch.

In two constituencies old rivals will clash. Sajan Kumar of Congress is trying to repeat his 1991 feat against Sahib Singh in Outer Delhi. In Sadar, old rivals Jagdish Tytler of Congress is opposing Vijay Goel of BJP. Goel had won Sadar in 1996 and then shifted to Chandni Chowk constituency. Tytler had last won in 1991.

There are also interesting contestants in other constituencies. In south Delhi, distant relatives V K Malhotra of BJP and RK Anand of Congress are facing each other. South Delhi has been a BJP bastion.

In East Delhi, Sandeep Dikshit is trying to avenge his mother Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s defeat. She had lost to Lal Bihari Tiwari, the BJP candidate, in 1998.

In Karol Bagh sitting MP Anita Arya of BJP is being challenged by Krishna Tirath of Congress. Arya had defeated Meira Kumar of Congress in 1999 by about 12000 votes. In adjoining Chandni Chowk, it is a clash between celebrity, Smriti Irani of BJP who is a small screen star and the legal eagle Kapil Sibal of Congress. In the muslim dominated constituency, the BJP may find the going tough in absence of a strong Muslim candidate.

New Delhi has two contestants who are banking on their achievements. Ajay Maken of Congress has listed his achievements as Delhi’s Transport Minister whereas BJP’s Jagmohan has enumerated his success stories as a minister.

FACT FILE

Weather: May 10 may be hot with temperature expected to rise up to 43 degree celsius. The heat wave plus a long weekend can result in low turnout. Since 1989, this the first election in Delhi to be held in summer. Other elections have either been in winter or autumn.

Satta: The satta operators give the Congress a huge edge in Delhi elections. The stakes for Congress is 48 paisa as compared to Rs 3.10 paisa for BJP to sweep the polls. Satta operators predict 5 : 2 verdict in favour of Congress.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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