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Campaigning low-key in Delhi

By Our Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI NOV. 26. With just three days for the campaigning to the Delhi Assembly elections to end, most voters say that they have not been approached by any party. However, most candidates, including the Delhi Chief Minister, Sheila Dikshit, are relying on door-to-door campaigning to woo the voters.

The campaigning has been generally low-key in most parts of the city. The reason probably lies in the fact that the contest is not really tough in most Assembly segments. So, while the electorate is getting to see the occasional vehicle of the candidates doing the rounds of the constituency playing a recorded message or a party song, in the absence of banners, buntings and posters, the buzz is missing.

For many residents, the newspapers are still the only source of information about the elections. "It is through newspapers that I get information on the candidates in my area. But what really amuses me is the abysmally low disclosure of assets made by most of the candidates," says Deepak Bawania, a resident of Sector 6, Dwarka. Neither he nor his family has been approached by any candidate. However, he points out that things appear much different in the Mahabir Enclave locality of the same Nasirpur constituency — in which sitting MLA Mahabal Misra of the Congress is pitted against Chandrika Thakur of the BJP — as the activity here is hectic most of the times. "Probably, this is so because Mahabir Enclave is an unauthorised and densely populated colony," he says.

The campaigning is equally low-key on the other side of Delhi in the Shahdara constituency. Here Kapil Sharma, a resident of Dilshad Garden and a coaching centre owner, claims that most of the residents have still not seen the two main candidates — Narendra Nath of the Congress and Ved Vyas Mahajan of the BJP. "However, most of us have seen Jitender Singh Shunty, a Congress dissident running as an independent, campaign hard."

While this would not actually turn the tables on the Congress stalwart and former Minister, Narendra Nath, Mr. Sharma says when a candidate interacts personally with the electorate, he definitely allures them a bit.

It is probably for this reason that the Chief Minister has been going door-to-door in her Gole Market constituency. Ms. Dikshit claims the personal contact she seeks to establish with her electorate would help her romp home.

However, not all of big names in Delhi politics seem to think like her. For in Kalkaji, where the Speaker of Delhi Assembly, Subhash Chopra, is seeking re-election against his traditional rival, Poornima Sethi, many of the voters have still not seen either of the candidates. Shekhar, a resident of Gangotri Apartments, claims that so far the parties have approached people in the apartments only through pamphlets, which were put in all the post boxes.

Elsewhere, in the Patel Nagar constituency, a resident of Prasad Nagar, Radhika, says that while the sitting MLA, Ramakant Goswami, has not been seen by many, the BJP candidate, Mahesh Chaddha, has made his presence felt by going from house to house asking for votes.

And in neighbouring Karol Bagh, she said, a eunuch who has jumped into the fray has been making waves by going around the place with a group of dhol beaters.

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