The elite South Delhi constituency may see caste and community playing an important role. Keeping the caste arithmetic, the Congress has fielded the champion boxer Vijender Singh, who is a Jat and had won the bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He will take on BJP’s sitting MP Ramesh Bidhuri also a Gujjar and Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Raghav Chadha who belongs to a Punjabi community.
With 19 days left for Lok Sabha election polling in national Capital, Ramesh Bidhuri filed his nomination in presence of Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday. Whereas, Vijender Singh also filed his nomination on Tuesday and Raghav Chadha had filed nomination earlier.
Over 10,000 people including youngsters participated in the road show organized by Bidhuri on Tuesday. Here it is to be noted that in 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Ramesh Bidhuri had registered an overwhelming win from the South Delhi seat by a margin of over one lakh votes.
“The enthusiastic response particular from youths that the well attended road show has received is a clear reflection of the mood of the people. People are determined to re-elect a government under the dynamic leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The “Jan-Neta” Ramesh Bidhuri will win with double margin this time,” said Gadkari during the road show.
Addressing the gathering, Bidhuri thanked the workers and key voters, who joined the Puja for their support. He also thanked Gadkari for sanctioning six lane National Highway (NH) 148-A at Meethapur, which upon completion will be a big relief for the people of South Delhi.
He also thanked Union Minister for Housing & Urban Affairs Hardeep Puri for getting the Mahipal flyover and underpass constructed in record time.
The constituency, which in 2004 Lok Sabha polls saw Dr Manmohan Singh losing to BJP’s Vijay Kumar Malhotra, now has over 16.5 lakh voters. Out of this, around 1.7 lakh are urban voters.
The Gujjars and Jat voters dominate a number of Assembly segments in the seat. The constituency has a total of 42 villages out of which 18 are dominated by Jats and 12 by the Gujjar community.
A split in the vote bank between Congress and AAP and a new face of Congress Vijender Singh gives BJP an edge in the constituency. While AAP’s vote share has registered a decline in elections held since 2015, Congress’s has been growing slowly. Following its victories in assembly elections in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan, Congress hopes to put up a good performance in Delhi.
AAP and Congress largely depend on similar vote bases - Muslims, Dalits and those living in unauthorized colonies and JJ clusters among others. It is the same vote bank which propelled AAP to power with an unprecedented mandate in the 2015 Delhi assembly elections. In the 2009 polls, Ramesh Kumar had won the seat by defeating Bidhuri by 90,000 votes. Kumar was nominated by Congress after his brother Sajjan Kumar was denied ticket in 2009 due to his alleged involvement in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
The AAP candidate Chadha had already started to campaign in South Delhi. On Sunday he organised a road show, a day before he was scheduled to file his nomination. The party’s south Delhi unit termed it a “nomination rally” while also calling it “Gundaraj Mukti Yatra”. It was led by Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh.
Accusing Bidhuri of behaving badly with the people, Chadha had urged them to vote for AAP in the election. “The people of south Delhi want change. They want to elect an MP who is answerable to them and understands their basic needs,” he said.
AAP had earlier released the report card of Bidhuri, accusing him of being “abrasive”, a charge which was contested strongly by the BJP leader.
