New Delhi

War for Delhi Assembly begins full throttle

NEW DELHI: With the last date for filing nomination papers for the upcoming Delhi Assembly elections over, all the candidates got down to some serious campaigning with most of them undertaking door-to-door canvassing to woo the voters.

The day also saw former and current Members of Parliament campaigning for their party candidates in their parliamentary constituencies as the Lok Sabha elections are now also only months away.

Bharatiya Janata party’s Chief Ministerial candidate Vijay Kumar Malhotra, who has so far addressed 35 workers’ meetings, expressed confidence that the BJP would secure a two-third majority in the new Assembly.

Addressing workers’ meetings, Prof. Malhotra said during the ten years of Congress rule in Delhi the citizens had suffered on all fronts. “The Sheila Dikshit Government has not fulfilled even a single promise contained in the party’s 2003 election manifesto. For ten years not a single step was taken by the Congress Government to get full Statehood for Delhi,” he added.

According to BJP spokesperson Mewa Ram Arya, all the party candidates have now started mass contact programme in their constituencies. “The candidates are getting wide public support,” he claimed.

BJP general secretary Vijay Goel undertook campaigning for party candidates Ravindra Bansal from Shalimar Bagh and Jai Bhagwan Agarwal from Rohini during the day. He also inaugurated Mr. Bansal’s election office and then participated in a procession on bicycles.

A notable feature of the procession was the presence of former Chief Minister Madan Lal Khurana who claimed that he would be campaigning for all the BJP candidates.

Meanwhile, Leader of Opposition in Delhi Assembly and BJP candidate from Janakpuri Jagdish Mukhi used the opportunity to raise the issue of the Congress-led Government at the Centre not rolling back prices of petroleum products despite the price of crude oil coming down from $ 147 to $ 60 per barrel in the international market. He said it was strange that despite this fall Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was saying that the oil companies like Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum were incurring huge losses.

On the other hand, Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president J. P. Agarwal said nomination papers of all 70 party candidates for the Assembly elections were found to be in order during scrutiny.

He said most candidates had now got down to the business of serious campaigning and opening new election offices in their respective constituencies.

Mr. Agarwal himself inaugurated the election office of Kunwar Karan Singh, the party’s candidate from Model Town, while MP Sajjan Kumar inaugurated the election office of Delhi Minister Yoganand Shastri in Mehrauli.

The DPCC chief said the Congress would once again seek votes on the strength of its track record of the past 10 years of rule in Delhi. He said work was apace on a war footing for the upcoming Commonwealth Games in the city in 2010.

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