The Hindu : New Delhi News : Congress tips the scales in Chandni Chowk

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 02, 2004

New Delhi

New Delhi

Congress tips the scales in Chandni Chowk

By Lalit. K. Jha

NEW DELHI, MAY 1. The Chandni Chowk constituency, spread over an area of around 10 sq. km, is sandwiched between the New Delhi and Old Delhi railways stations in the Capital. An Assembly segment after Independence, Chandni Chowk was carved out as a Lok Sabha seat from the Delhi City parliamentary constituency in 1957.

Unlike in the past two Lok Sabha elections, the Congress and the BJP are engaged in a direct fight for this seat now. While the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate is a household name through her portrayal as the favourite "desi bahu'' on the idiot box, the Congress nominee is one of the best legal brains in the country and is among the new breed of politicians trying to make a mark in the party. Smriti "Tulsi'' Irani of "Saas Bhi Kabhie Bahu Thee'' tele-serial fame takes on the Congress spokesman and eminent Supreme Court lawyer, Kapil Sibal, in this crowded constituency, one of the smallest in the country.

The odds clearly are loaded against Smriti despite her star power and youth appeal, especially among women. The exit of the Janata Dal (S) leader, Shoaib Iqbal, from the contest has ensured that the road to the Lok Sabha is not all that troublesome for Mr. Sibal. For his part, a confident Mr. Sibal says he will register an outright victory and it is only a question of margin, while Smriti has not given up and promises to give a tough time to Mr. Sibal.

The first to represent this constituency in Parliament was Radha Raman of the Congress in 1957. Since then, the constituency has witnessed 11 Lok Sabha polls, of which the Congress has won six times (in 1962, 1971, 1980, 1984, 1989 and 1996), and the BJP on five occasions (1967, 1977, 1991, 1998 and 1999). Except for Jai Prakash Agarwal of the Congress (1984 and 1989 and 1996) and BJP's Vijay Goel (1998 and 1999), no other candidate has represented the seat twice.

However, this time round the Congress decided not to field Mr. Agarwal for the seventh consecutive time in the face of protests at the local level and opted for Mr. Sibal, a highly successful lawyer. Mr. Sibal is comfortably placed after the last-minute exit of the Matia Mahal MLA and influential local Muslim leader, Mr.Iqbal. Two consecutive defeats of the Congress by small margins of around 4,349 votes in 1998 and 3,995 votes in 1999 were mainly because of division of the Muslim votes by Mr. Iqbal who on both the occasions got over one-fourth of the votes polled. Arguing that his candidature would divide the crucial Muslim votes resulting in a BJP victory, Mr. Iqbal decided not to file his nomination papers this time.

Of a total of 3.35 lakh voters in Chandni Chowk, more than one third (1.15 lakhs) are estimated to be Muslim voters. A majority of them are in the two Assembly segments of Balli Maran and Matia Mahal. Even though the Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid, Syed Ahmed Bukhari, who holds considerable influence in the area, has openly said that the BJP needs to be given a chance, a majority of the Muslims here are considered most likely to vote for the Congress. The area is faced with problems of traffic congestion, blatant commercialisation of residential properties, bad roads, poor parking facilities and lack of proper civic amenities.

Given the strong business character of Chandni Chowk, the constituency has a sizable presence of people from the trading community. Rough estimates put the influential Vaish community votes at around 70,000 and the Jains at around 30,000 votes. Apart from this, Sikhs and Punjabi voters together account for nearly 35,000 votes and the Scheduled Caste votes stands at 50,000 votes.

Besides large-scale relocation of slum clusters, the past five years have also seen migration of the affluent business community and upper caste Hindu from this area due to blatant commercialisation and congestion. The constituency has also witnessed a decline in the total numbers of voters by over ten per cent since 1999.

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