NEW DELHI: Delhi will vote to elect seven Lok Sabha candidates on May 25 in the sixth phase of polling. Chief election commissioner Rajiv Kumar announced the schedule on Saturday with the model code of conduct kicking in immediately. Votes cast by over 1.47 crore Delhi voters will be counted on June 4 with the rest of the country.
The election campaign in Delhi is likely to be a high-octane one with BJP, which won all seven seats in 2014 and 2019, pitted against joint candidates of Congress and AAP. Constituents of INDIA, the two parties have forged a seat-sharing arrangement this time to prevent splitting of anti-BJP votes. AAP is contesting on four seats - East Delhi, New Delhi, South Delhi and West Delhi - while Congress will field its candidates on the remaining three - North East Delhi, Chandni Chowk and North West Delhi.
Filing of nominations will begin on April 29 with a gazette notification. The candidates will be able to file their papers till May 6 and these will be scrutinised on May 7. The last date for withdrawal of nominations is May 9.
According to data shared by the chief electoral officer of Delhi, 1,47,18,119 voters - 79,86,572 men, 67,30,371 women and 1,176 of the third gender - will be eligible to cast their votes. The gender ratio in Delhi at 843 women voters per 1000 men is much lower than the national average of 948. About 1,47,074 or nearly 1% of the eligible voters in the city are first-timers.
Officials said that those who are above 18 years of age and are living in Delhi but are not registered as voters can still apply through online and offline methods. The voters' list will be frozen on the last date of filing of nominations.
The election in Delhi is going to be interesting this time with a direct fight between BJP and the AAP-Congress combine.
Contesting on four seats, AAP has fielded three sitting MLAs and a former MP to take on BJP. Probably for the first time in Delhi, the party has fielded a scheduled caste candidate - Kondli MLA Kuldeep Kumar - from East Delhi, a general category seat. Delhi Jal Board vice chairman and Malviya Nagar MLA Somnath Bharti is contesting from New Delhi, Tughlaqabad MLA Sahiram Pehalwan from South and former Congress MP Mahabal Mishra, who switched to AAP a couple of years ago, from West Delhi.
Following announcement of the poll schedule, AAP national convener and Delhi CM urged people to "vote against dictatorship and hooliganism". He posted in Hindi on X that "Aam Aadmi Party works on the real issues of people and provides facilities to the public. Strengthen our hands by voting for (election symbol) broom, wherever our candidates are contesting, so that we can work for you with more energy".
The AAP govt's friction with the Centre, represented by the LG, over a range of issues is bound to spill over into the campaigning by its candidates.
Meanwhile, the party's alliance partner, Congress, is yet to declare candidates for its three seats. However, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Arvinder Singh Lovely, given the onerous responsibility of reviving the party's fortunes in Delhi, questioned BJP about the work done by its MPs in the past 10 years.
"None of the BJP MPs has utilised the local area development fund or impressed upon the Govt at the Centre to improve the city's public transport, eliminate air and water pollution, build new schools, colleges and hospitals, or at least implement PM Modi's much-publicised Swachh Bharat Abhiyan to clean up the mountains of garbage," Lovely said.
BJP has changed almost the entire line-up this time, repeating just one - Manoj Tiwari in North East Delhi. Except New Delhi candidate Bansuri Swaraj, who will be making her electoral debut, all other candidates, though new to parliamentary elections, have been in electoral politics for a few years. The BJP candidates include leader of the opposition in the Delhi Assembly and veteran politician Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, three former mayors in the trifurcated MCD - Kamaljeet Sehrawat, Yogendra Chandolia and Harshdeep Malhotra - and trader-leader Praveen Khandewal.
Confident of repeating their success in 2014 and 2019, BJP functionaries said their candidates will win all seven seats with bigger margins. BJP had cornered over 57 per cent votes in the 2019 elections. With 22% votes, Congress had emerged second on five seats and AAP had got 18% votes and was the runner-up on two seats.
Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said strength of the party's organisational structure, guidance of senior leadership and people's trust in PM Narendra Modi gives him confidence to believe that BJP will sweep the elections winning all seven seats.
"Our campaign will largely be positive, taking achievements and contributions for Delhi's development amongst the people. But we will also expose corruption, nepotism and the Kejriwal govt's failure to develop Delhi before voters," he said. The party will also make implementation of Citizenship (Amendment) Act, construction of Ram Temple in Ayodhya and passing of women's reservation bill in Parliament election issues in Delhi.
Since Delhi will vote in the sixth phase, Sachdeva said BJP will review its electoral strategy to keep the energy of party cadre intact and maintain the momentum of its campaign. Bidhuri added that BJP candidates have already started their campaign and were getting a huge response.
AAP leaders said the negative impact on employment and food by giving citizenship to illegal immigrants under CAA, snatching of Delhi govt's powers through amendments in GNCTD Act and control over bureaucracy to obstruct various schemes and policies launched by Delhi govt will be some of the election issues that they will highlight this time.
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