Date:14/11/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/11/14/stories/2008111454330400.htm

New Delhi

Anjali Rai back in Moti Nagar to take on sitting MLA

Smriti Kak Ramachandran

Anjali Rai, MLA from Paharganj, had lost Moti Nagar in 1993
“People angry with non-performance of Sachdeva”
Subhash Sachdeva says Rai is back just for polls
The constituency is a stronghold of saffron party

NEW DELHI: Considered a stronghold of the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Moti Nagar seat that falls in the New Delhi parliamentary constituency will have two-time Paharganj MLA Anjali Rai of the Congress challenging the BJP’s sitting MLA Subhash Sachdeva. Also trying their luck will be the candidates of the Bahujan Samaj Party, the Samajwadi Party and the Lok Jan Shakti Party.

The contest primarily is between Ms. Rai -- who lost the seat to the BJP’s Madan Lal Khurana in 1993 and thereafter shifted to Paharganj -- and the BJP’s Sachdeva. Claiming to be undeterred by her earlier defeat in 1993, Ms. Rai is hoping to make a “decisive comeback” from Moti Nagar, but her main opponent Mr. Sachdeva counter-attacks by saying, “she forsook the constituency when she lost in 1993, and she is back now just for the elections.”

As the Congress and the BJP spar over their commitment to the area, it is the Samajwadi Party that boasts of “coming to power” what with its candidate Lal Babu Pandey having “accumulated enough goodwill”.

Mr. Pandey, who contested the 2003 elections as well, says he has been “encouraged” to put up a fight by the 38,000-strong voters from the area’s jhuggi jhonpri clusters. Conceding that Mr. Sachdeva is the “competitor” to look out for, Mr. Pandey does not foresee victory for the Congress. “Both the Congress and the BJP have failed to address the basic problems that people in the Moti Nagar slum clusters face. Everyday brings with it problems of water and power shortage.”

Repeated complaints have gone unattended, which is why the people this time have decided to opt for a change and the change is the Samajwadi Party,” he says. Echoing the sentiment of “change” is also Ms. Rai, who alleges that the area has been reduced to living with the “stink from unclean sewers”. Lashing out at the sitting MLA, she says: “People are angry with the non-performance of this MLA. The day-to-day complaints are not attended to. He is not even seen in the area.”

For her part, she says she has been actively involved in uplifting the slum dwellers through her non-government organisation -- Foundation for Change Management. Incidentally while both Ms. Rai and Mr. Pandey are keen on “cleaning up” Moti Nagar, Mr. Sachdeva wants the area to emerge as a “safer and a more developed” one. “All these allegations that the sewers are not being cleaned are baseless. Even today we have work going on at the main trunk sewer, which was last cleaned in 1978. I have got work started on construction of an underground reservoir, a foot-over bridge has been built between Ram Nagar and Rajouri Garden, and hand pumps have been sunk in slum clusters,” he says. The BJP’s contestant does not limit his concerns to his constituency alone; he is equally disturbed by the “rising crime against the aged in the city, pollution in the Yamuna and glorification of terrorists by the Congress”.

Post-delimitation, the Moti Nagar seat covers Patel Nagar, Rajouri Nagar and Baljit Nagar.

With a predominantly Punjabi population, the area has 1.4 lakh registered voters, 12 per cent of whom come from the jhuggi jhonpri clusters, 11 p.c. from the reserved category and 13 p.c. from the labour class.