The Hindu : New Delhi News : Third Front, Congress gear up for Delhi civic polls

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Tuesday, Mar 13, 2007
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New Delhi

Third Front, Congress gear up for Delhi civic polls

Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

Five-party Third Front is all set to announce its first list of 150 candidates

NEW DELHI: First off the block, the five-party Third Front alliance in the Capital, Pragatisheel Jan Morcha, is all set to announce its first list of 150 candidates for the coming Municipal Corporation of Delhi elections.

Though there are around 75 seats for which the various constituents of the alliance wanted to field their candidates, the Morcha -- that would be contesting all the 272 wards -- sorted out the issue quickly to the satisfaction of all.

The Morcha convener, Badarpur MLA Ramvir Singh Bidhuri, said that under the arrangement reached among the five constituent parties -- Communist Party of India (Marxist), CPI, Jan Morcha, Nationalist Congress Party and Janta Dal (S) -- the number of seats to be contested by each party had been decided.

Mr. Bidhuri, who is also president of the Delhi NCP, said the CPI (M) and the CPI would together contest as many as 50 seats while an equal number would be contested by former Prime Minister V.P. Singh's Jan Morcha. The remaining 172 seats would be fought by the Janata Dal (S) and the NCP, which would be fielding the maximum number of candidates.

Since during the seat sharing talks there were about a score of wards from where more than one party was interested in fielding candidates, the constituents also agreed to the concept of "friendly contests'' for those seats.

"The idea behind the friendly contest is that it would give a chance to the parties to see how strong their respective candidates are in their constituency. This would go a long way in improving the prospects of these parties in Delhi in the years to come,'' Mr. Bidhuri said.

By quickly deciding on the seat sharing, the Pragatisheel Jan Morcha has stolen the march over its main rivals -- the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party -- since now its candidates would have more time at hand to start campaigning.

Campaign issues

The alliance is fighting the polls on the issues of failure of power reforms in Delhi on the three counts of load shedding, fast running electricity meters and inflated bills, all-round price rise that has hit the common man hard and corruption in the MCD during the past five years.

The Morcha is expected to severely impact the outcome of polls in several wards as the size of the wards has been reduced to around 50,000 people each and its constituent parties have a strong presence in various pockets around the city. As such it is confident of putting up a good show in the elections.

Congress preparations

The Congress on Monday constituted an Election Screening Committee under the chairmanship of party general secretary Ashok Gehlot to select candidates for the forthcoming Municipal Corporation of Delhi elections.

The committee includes Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Ram Babu Sharma, Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and Union Minister of State for Urban Development Ajay Maken.

The other members of the committee are Delhi Finance Minister A.K. Walia, Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely, Rajya Sabha member J. P. Aggarwal, Lok Sabha member Krishna Tirath and AICC secretaries Pervez Hashmi and J.D. Seelam.

The frontal organisations of the Congress such as Mahila Congress, Youth Congress, National Students' Union of India and Sewa Dal would also be consulted in the finalisation of candidates.

The constitution of the committee almost coincided with the submission of the short-listed candidates for all the 272 wards by the 12 District Congress Committee Observers to the DPCC president. The list of short-listed candidates was prepared following consultations among the area MP, MLA, observer, district presidents of the party and all the frontal organisations.

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