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Campaigning reaches its peak in the Capital

Staff Reporter

STAR CAMPAIGNERS: BJP leaders Shatrughan Sinha and Harsh Vardhan along with party candidate from Madanpur Khadar Shweta Sinha during an election meeting on Saturday. Photo: PTI

NEW DELHI: With polling day for the Municipal Corporation of Delhi elections drawing near, both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party intensified their campaigning across the city on Saturday by organising door-to-door walks and holding public meetings.

Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Ram Babu Sharma addressed public meetings in support of five of the candidates during the day and said that by defeating the BJP again in the municipal elections people would be able to save Delhi as Congress would work towards making it a truly beautiful city.

Union Minister of State for Urban Development Ajay Maken also addressed meetings for the party's R.K. Puram and Pushp Vihar candidates and said the Congress had done "historic" work by formulating the new Master Plan for Delhi-2021. For its implementation, he said, it was essential that now people return the Congress to power in the MCD.

Outer Delhi MP Sjjan Kumar also addressed several meetings during which he criticised the BJP candidates for not making themselves available for service of the people and only cropping up during the election time. Delhi Sadar MP Jagdish Tytler said the Congress should be voted to power as its workers and leaders are social workers who are always with the masses irrespective of whether elections are being held or not.

The day's main programme of the BJP included a public meeting at Chandni Chowk where Mr. Rajnath Singh and former Union Minister Vijay Goel accused the ruling Congress of mis-governance and corruption and demanded that people vote the BJP to power for making the MCD more efficient.

Cinema star and BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha and former Delhi Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma addressed four meetings in South Delhi, while Sushma Swaraj and Mr. V.K. Malhotra addressed three in the same district. Arun Jaitley addressed meetings at Sarita Vihar, Badarpur and Molarband while Navjot Singh Sidhu had a road show covering seven places in North and North West Delhi.

Other senior BJP leaders including Shahnawaz Hussain, Vallabh Bhai Katheria, Shanta Kumar, Arif Baig, Kirti Azad, Krishan Das and Hukum Dev Narain Singh addressed nearly a dozen meetings among them.

Delhi BJP president Harsh Vardhan, meanwhile, charged that the Congress had failed to fulfil the promises made in its election manifesto for the MCD elections in 2002 and had now made the same promises with regards to seeking full Statehood for Delhi, regularising all unauthorised colonies and allotting plots to slum dwellers.

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