He had lost to Congress candidate and sitting MP Ramesh Kumar in the 2009 lok Sabha polls, but did not lose the faith of his party. BJP’s candidate from South Delhi, RAMESH BIDHURI has bounced back to fight the 2014 polls with the certainty of a ‘sweeping victory’ in the constituency. In a conversation with SWETA GOSWAMI, Bidhuri, the sitting MlA from Tughlakabad, explains what plagues the once-posh South Delhi region and his agenda for the people if voted to power.
South Delhi is far from being developed. What are the issues in this constituencyIJ
Water has been the key issue. The previous Government has totally and repeatedly failed to tackle this problem. What could be worse than the fact that despite having Congress Government in Delhi, Haryana and at the Centre, the Munak Canal issue is still not resolved. Secondly, it is a shame that the entire region does not have a single Government hospital or a college. Thirdly, because most of the population in this seat belong to the lower income group, unrestrained inflation has led to seething public anger.
You lost to Ramesh Kumar in the last general elections. How do you gauge the competitionIJ
There is zero competition. Anti-incumbency is at its peak. People hate the Congress now. This is mainly due to all of its failed policies. The party couldn’t do anything to curb inflation which now has reached 11-12 per cent, whereas during Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s time it was limited to 4-5 per cent.
What about the Aam Aadmi PartyIJ
Again, I see no fight at all. look, it is because of the multiple wrong policies taken up by the Congress that anarchist parties like the AAP have emerged. The party gave people a ray of hope and a bundle of false promises. Everyone is witness to how they shied away from their responsibilities when the time had come to do something. People are disillusioned now and consider AAP as an irresponsible party. Also, the hydra-headed corruption monster must be slayed.
What will be your action plan if the people of South Delhi make you their MPIJ
First, will be solving the water crisis in the region. This would be done not by fooling people of providing 700 litres of free water, but by giving Delhi its share of Yamuna water from the Munak Canal. Secondly, I would work on widening and carpeting of roads. Third, on my agenda, is to carry out in-situ development for the dwellers of jhuggis and resettlement colonies.
South Delhi being a conglomerate of rural and urban villages along with unauthorised colonies, do you think caste plays an important factorIJ
No, I do not think caste plays an important factor here. People of all castes live collectively here. Even if there a few pockets dominated by a particular caste, it can’t have much impact on winnability as the maximum percentage of any caste is 8-9 per cent. For example, Madangir and Deoli have two Jat villages, which have 3 polling booths each. Mahipalpur has 8 villages out of which 6 are Jat dominated. These 6 Jat dominated villages have only 3 polling booths each. So in around 150 polling booths, if 24 are influenced by a particular caste, we can’t say that it is an important factor. There are other communities as well like Valmiki, OBCs, Punjabis and Gujjars. Gujjars have 25 villages and form 9 per cent of the vote share in South Delhi.