The Hindu : New Delhi News : Opposite stand on councillors’ candidature

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Monday, Aug 18, 2008
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Opposite stand on councillors’ candidature

Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

Congress open to Councillors fighting polls
They will break people’s trust by doing so: BJP

NEW DELHI: The Delhi units of the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party have taken diametrically opposite positions on considering the candidature of those who had contested the Municipal Corporation of Delhi elections for the Delhi Assembly polls due later this year.

A senior Congress leader said the party was not entirely opposed to fielding candidates who had contested the MCD elections in the Delhi Assembly polls. “If a candidate has a good chance of winning the elections because of his work and his image in a given area, then he should not be kept out of the race for the ticket only because he had contested the municipal polls.”

However, the leader said this primarily applies to those candidates who had won the elections and are now councillors. “For someone who had lost the municipal elections, it would not be right to even think about getting a ticket for the Assembly polls, that too only a year later.”

The leader said the list of prospective candidates submitted by the observers appointed by Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee could contain the names of some sitting councillors. “We had not barred them from putting up their case for selection.” On the other hand, the BJP had told all the 272 candidates at the time of distributing tickets for the MCD elections in 2007 that “they would not be considered for the 2008 election.”

“We are of the view that these candidates, particularly those who had won, have been given a clear mandate by the people to represent them and rule for five years. By contesting the Assembly elections, they would break this trust.”

Another reason why the BJP is not keen on fielding these candidates is that it feels that a large number of MCD seats would be rendered vacant by this and this would put unnecessary burden of a by-election on the party at a time when the Lok Sabha elections are also not too far away.

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