The Hindu : Prestigious seats, close contests

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Nov 16, 2003

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Prestigious seats, close contests

By Lalit. K. Jha

NEW DELHI NOV. 15. Comprising VVIP voters like the First Citizen of the country, President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, and the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Sonia Gandhi, the prestigious New Delhi parliamentary constituency is all set to witness another interesting battle on December 1 in its five Assembly segments. All five seats will witness direct contests between the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party with the battle royal taking place in Gole Market where the Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, is pitted against newcomer Poonam Azad of the BJP.

Consisting of five Assembly seats -- Sarojini Nagar, Gole Market , Minto Road, Kasturba Nagar and Jangpura - this parliamentary constituency has in the past three Lok Sabha polls voted for the BJP leader and Union Tourism and Culture Minister, Jagmohan. In the 1993 Assembly polls, the BJP won three seats and the Congress two and the results were just the opposite in the 1998 polls. The Minto Road constituency has the highest number of 96,695 voters followed closely by Jangpura with 93,804. Sarojni Nagar has 90,966, Kasturba Nagar 87,322 and Gole Market 82,662. Consisting mostly of the New Delhi Municipal Council areas, the Assembly segments have a mix of VIP areas, diplomatic enclave, colonies inhabited by Central and State Government employees, posh localities, refugees and JJ clusters. With a large presence of literate voters, development will be the main election plank followed by other issues like civic amenities, water, roads and the extensive illegal commercialisation of the area posing a great hazard to the residential colonies.

All eyes will be on the Gole Market seat. Here Ms. Dikshit is seeking a re-election and faces Ms. Poonam Azad, wife of the cricketer-turned-politician Kirti Azad. In 1998, Ms. Dikshit had defeated Mr. Azad (BJP) by 5,667 votes. In 1993, Mr. Azad had defeated Brij Mohan Bhama of the Congress by a margin of 3,803 votes. In the 1999 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP got 6,844 votes more than the Congress. Gole Market has 42 per cent Scheduled Caste voters of which Balmikis constitute a major chunk. This segment also has skilled workers (22 per cent), unskilled labour (20 per cent), Class II and III employees (18 per cent) and professionals (14 per cent).

Government employees dominate the Sarojini Nagar segment which is considered to be a stronghold of the BJP. The BJP's Ram Bhaj, who is seeking to score a hat trick, represents the seat. Though, his margin of victory fell drastically from 14,196 in 1993 to just 1,528 votes in 1998, Mr. Bhaj is said to be comfortably placed in view of the weak Congress challenge. In the 1999 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP got 11,752 more votes than the Congress from this seat.

However, it is exactly the opposite in the case of the Minto Road seat where senior Congress leader Tajdar Babar is seeking a re-election for the third time in a row. The seat is dominated by Scheduled Castes (29 per cent) including Balmikis (10 per cent) and Muslims (20 per cent). Ms. Babar has been representing the seat since 1993 when she won by a margin of 1,871 votes against Arun Jain of the BJP. She consolidated her position in 1998 and sharply increased the victory margin to 14,765 votes against the same opponent. In the 1999 Lok Sabha polls, Congress polled 5,085 votes more than the BJP while in the 2002 municipal elections it polled 15,885 more votes. In the nearby Kasturba Nagar constituency, it is the trading community (25 per cent) and upper salaried class (27 per cent) that dominate. In 1993 polls Jagdish Lal Batra of the BJP won this seat defeating his nearest Congress rival Desh Raj Chhabra by 10,056 votes. In 1998, BJP's Sushil Chaudhary won by a narrow margin of 899 votes over Ram Rattan Gupta of the Congress. The posh Jangpura constituency has in the past been closely identified with the veteran Congressman and freedom fighter, Jag Parvesh Chandra, who represented the seat for a long time including in the first Vidhan Sabha. Mr. Chandra had won the seat in 1993 defeating the BJP's Ram Lal Verma by a margin of 2,491 votes. He opted out of the contest in 1998 and handed over the reins to Tarvinder Singh Marwah who won the seat by a margin of 11,919 defeating his nearest BJP rival Bir Bahadur. In the 1999 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress lagged behind the BJP by 3,648 votes while in the 2002 municipal elections it gained an upper hand and polled 16,165 votes more than the BJP's share.

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