New Delhi: As 12 May nears, the otherwise hot and dreary Delhi summer is now filled with excitement, anger and confusion. While the 2019 Lok Sabha polls is a triangular contest between Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Congress, the North East constituency seems to be a battle for only BJP and AAP.
The Seemapuri residents, who voted for either Congress or BJP in 2014 show full support to the AAP president Arvind Kejriwal. Many residents like Nafis thank Kejriwal for bringing water tankers right to their doorstep. “Either we vote for AAP or we go for NOTA,” was the sentiment shared by several families even though in a recently held media interaction, BJP candidate Manoj Tiwari talked of his party pledging to bring water to each and every household by 2024. However a minuscule part of Seemapuri residents believe that it is Congress who will bring back the good old fiza that India earlier had. Shehzad Ali, senior citizen and a kirana store owner, has had always voted for Congress. “It is Congress who will bring back the Hindu-Muslim unity,” he said.
The same views were shared by the residents of Muslim dominated Seelampur. Here, only a handful felt like extending support to either BJP or Congress. Sarafat Ali, one of the many moti sellers, blamed BJP for downfall in the job market. However, in the same area were people like Mohammed Yameen, a clothes seller, Mandeep, a water kiosk owner and Lalit, resident, who showed complete support to BJP. While Yameen praised the policies that the BJP introduced for the benefit of traders, Lalit said, post GST the shopkeepers don’t have to maintain receipts of the whole year to pay tax at the end of the year.
Mohammeed Yameen’s views were in common with the shopkeepers of Rohtash Nagar and Babapur area. Issues like GST and demonetisation which jolted the country seemed to have little or no effect in the minds of residents and traders of Rohtash Nagar and Babarpur. Ruhi Khan, resident of Babarpur, had a thumbs-up for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and even store owners like Atul Bakshi had only one thing to say, “We vote dil se. And it is only for Modiji.” He further said that right now though many people are not getting the benefit but in the long run policies like GST will definitely have positive results. However, if for all products GST is 5 % then it will ease the worries of the business class people, he added. A shoe store owner, Kaiser, showered praises on Modi for taking strict action against perpetrators of Pulawama attack. Similarly, Alok Goyal, a Rohtash Nagar resident, said that it is during BJP’s tenure that progress is actually happening in all sectors, while during Sheila Dikshit’s tenure corruption was at peak, Arvind Kejriwal’s work is not benefitting anybody, he added.
However Raj, a bakery shop owner in Rohtash Nagar said, “Paying the CA to do the GST has added to our expenditure and reduced our profit,” and his wife Anjali lamented that Modiji’s scheme of everyone going online has been a headache for them. She said, “We had installed credit card machine and all online payment applications. With paying some percentage of payment to these online payment kiosks we could not make much profit and also several times we got duped by customers who lied about having done the payment.”
With all eyes on the Purvanchali voters who hold a very important place in Delhi politics the BJP has once again fielded Bhojpuri singer Manoj Tiwari in the North-East constituency while AAP has given ticket to Dilip Pandey.
Burari having the highest population of purvanchalis, has a divided opinion for BJP and AAP. Residents like Virendra Tyagi share strong sentiments for AAP president Arvind Kejriwal. While upholding Arvind Kejriwal’s work, Raja Ram, owner of an acupressure centre, said that with the BJP government at the Centre, issues like unemployment, women-safety and senior citizens have cropped up. Even J.B. Dhruv, retired Navy official, said that ever since Manoj Tiwari became MLA from this constituency he had never once come here, though, AAP members come to meet people regularly. Both cheered AAP for bringing in Mohalla clinic, water tankers, cutting electricity bills and improving education system in government schools. One of the residents Nita Rawat said, “Never had bulldozers entered this area. But this time during festival MCD brought in bulldozers because of which we couldn’t display our products outside the shops,” said one of the residents.
However, other residents shared a different opinion. Yogendra Tyagi, a kirana store owner applauded BJP’s policies like GST and demonetization while slamming AAP and Congress. Even Krishna Avtar Tyagi, a senior citizen, held same opinion for Congress. “I was a postal department employee. During Congress’ rule the DA was 3-4% but there was inflation. However, in BJP’s rule DA is just 1% but the inflation has stopped,” he shared. However, his view was rejected by his nephew Pankaj Tyagi who supported Congress and blamed BJP for the downfall of employment rate.
With the popularity that Arvind Kejriwal has gained, AAP is all set to give a tough fight to BJP whereas the Congress seem to lag behind in this triangular contest. In an interview with this reporter Sheila Dikshit, fighting from North East constituency said, “AAP has done nothing other than taking credit for the work started by Congress.”