All the three candidates contesting from this seat being Jat leaders makes the contest tough.
New Delhi: The Mundka constituency in the northwest part of Delhi bordering Haryana is witnessing a tough triangular fight among the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the BJP and the Congress, unlike in many other parts of Delhi where the contest is primarily between the AAP and BJP.
The AAP has fielded new entrant Dharampal Lakra who is the richest candidate contesting the Delhi elections due on 8 February, after denying ticket to its sitting AAP MLA Sukhbir Singh Dalal. The BJP has fielded Master Azad Singh, the brother of former Delhi BJP Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma and the Congress, on the other hand, has fielded senior Jat leader Dr Naresh Kumar to contest from this seat.
Mundka, a semi-urban and semi-rural constituency of northwest Delhi, is primarily dominated by Jats. With 20 villages and 50 unauthorised colonies, it also has a sizeable number of Brahmin, Baniya and Sikh population along with 8-9% Muslim population. All the three candidates contesting from this seat being Jat leaders makes the contest tough.
BJP candidate Master Azad Singh is banking on the image of his brother Sahib Singh Verma, who was also a Jat leader. After unsuccessfully contesting twice from the same constituency, this time Master Azad is hopeful that anti-incumbency against the sitting AAP MLA and corruption charges against new AAP candidate Dharampal Lakra will give him an edge over AAP and Congress. “Every villager knows how Dharampal Lakra got the ticket by bribing. He has also occupied a lot of land here,” alleged Master Azad.
Master Azad, who was on the campaign trail in the Karala village in Mundka, told The Sunday Guardian, “The Jats of Delhi have always been with Sahib Singh Verma and I am sure that even this time around, they will vote for me and the BJP.”
Speaking about Kejriwal and AAP, Master Azad said, “Kejriwal is a perpetual liar. His freebie politics will not be acceptable among the people as they know free things cannot sustain for long.”
Corruption charges against AAP candidate Dharampal Lakra are doing the rounds of the constituency as his own election affidavit says he has a criminal case pending against him with the CBI under Section 12 of Prevention of Corruption Act 1988.
However, AAP member and son of Dharampal Lakra, Sunil Lakra denied any impact of these charges on the ground and said that the Opposition parties were levelling these allegations to tarnish the image of Dharampal Lakra.
He told The Sunday Guardian, “These are all baseless allegations and if they (the Opposition) have any proof of any such charges, why don’t they go to the Election Commission and complain?”
“The thing is that Opposition parties are in fear of losing this election. We are going to win with a huge margin. People are very happy with the work done by Arvind Kejriwalji”, Lakra added.
While denying ticket to the sitting AAP MLA Sukhbir Singh Dalal, another challenge for the party is to contain its party workers who are seemingly unhappy with the party high command as they believe that Lakra is an “undeserving” candidate.
“He never worked for AAP earlier; he was never a karyakarta of the party and we fail to understand on what basis the ticket was given to him. We came to know about his candidature only at the 11th hour. The party could have given the ticket to any hard working volunteer; he or she would have won,” said an AAP volunteer who is unhappy over a new entrant being given the ticket.
Estrangement with the new candidate is also weakening the threads in AAP as sitting AAP MLA Sukhbir Singh Dalal is distancing himself from campaigning for the new candidate. A close associate of Sukhbir Singh Dalal told The Sunday Guardian, “We don’t want to take any responsibility for the win and loss of Dharmpal Lakra. Sukhbirji is campaigning for Arvindji in other constituencies, but not in Mundka.”
The infighting within the AAP is giving an upper hand to the Congress, which is putting up a tough fight in the Mundka constituency, unlike in any other place in Delhi.
The Congress in this constituency has already completed over 15 padyatras, 20 nukkad sabhas and several road shows until Thursday.
The Congress office here is also abuzz with workers busy looking into arrangements and managing time slots for their candidate to go to different parts of this constituency to address voters.
Dr Naresh Kumar, Congress candidate from Mundka, said: “In Mundka, the fight is between the clean and the corrupt, the educated and the less educated. I have a dream for Mundka. I will try to bring Delhi University west campus to my constituency. People had rejected the BJP candidate earlier also and the AAP candidate is known for his socially unacceptable behaviour. People here want someone who will really think for them and work for them.”
Lawyer by profession, Dr Naresh Kumar is the only highly educated candidate in Mundka with Ph.d, LLB and P.G.D.J. His campaigning is also much ahead of both BJP and AAP as an AAP worker from Mundka while speaking to The Sunday Guardian said that the Congress candidate from here was at the forefront when it came to campaigning. “When we talk of the Mundka constituency, I would say that no other political party is campaigning like the Congress here. They are putting in a lot of effort this time around to win this seat. But what exactly will happen is difficult to say because all the three candidates are quite strong here,” the AAP worker said.
A resident and a shop owner of Mundka said, “You should have seen the rally Congress had taken out during the nomination filing of their candidate; it was the biggest. The BJP here did a low-key show, while the AAP had also managed to organise a large number of people on the day of nomination filing.”