The BJP candidate from West Delhi parliamentary seat, Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma is invoking the legacy of his father late Sahib Singh Verma, a known Jat leader to make it to Parliament. Parvesh is asking electorate of rural areas in the constituency to vote for him in the name of his late father saying he will carry forward the legacy of Sahib Singh Verma, who did welfare work for rural areas in his capacity as Chief Minister of Delhi and Union labour Minister. Addressing a gathering at Kharkhari village in Chhawla on Friday, Parvesh urged villagers to vote for him. “You can trust me; I will carry forward the legacy of my father. I will not disappoint you. like my father, I will work for rural people,” he said.
Scores of people who were present at the village chaupal assured Parvesh of their support saying they would vote for him. “Apne dehat ka ladka hai... usi ko denge... (he is from our rural belt… we will vote for him),” came a prompt reply from one Devender Singh. He was joined by
several others despite the fact that Chhawla is home to former Congress MlA from Matiala, Sumesh Shokeen.
The villagers said the entire village voted for Shokeen during the Assembly elections but things are different this time around. “He (Shokeen) is not contesting himself, so it hardly matters. Moreover, Parvesh is the only candidate who belongs to the rural belt. He would be taking the legacy of his father (former CM Sahib Singh Verma) forward who did several good things for the villages,” said Varun Kharkhari of Kharkhari village.
Recalling “several projects initiated by the senior Verma, Kharkhari cited how the village closely missed getting the Indraprastha University campus which later came up in Dwarka. There was a similarity in the mood of the people in other rural villages, including Paprawat, Ghasipur and Kakraula. Chhawla is one of the around four dozen villages spread over the two Assembly segments of Matiala and Najafgarh under the West Delhi parliamentary constituency, which still retains the ‘rural flavour’ with the residents still practising agriculture and animal husbandry for a living. Several other villages have been denuded by rapid urbanisation. Put together, there are around 90 villages in the West Delhi parliamentary seat.
Parvesh said that there is no development in rural belt after the death of his father and the Congress Government did nothing for the dehat people. The AAP candidate Jarnail Singh is nowhere in the contest in rural areas.