The national capital Delhi is all set for the 15th Lok Sabha elections Thursday (May 7) as the curtain came down on electioneering on Tuesday evening. The ruling Congress will try to continue its assembly poll performance while BJP would certainly try to improve its tally.
Although the Congress is confident enough to repeat its 2004 victory when it won six out of the seven parliamentary constituencies, there are some immediate factors might come into play against its winning run, including the delimitation of constituencies.
This apart, the Sikh sentiments arose after CBI’s clean cheat to one of the key accused and Congress leader Jagdish Tytler, which had forced the party to drop his candidature, may have serious stake in the polling outcome. Sikhs have protested against the alleged role of Tytler and Sajjan Kumar in 1984 anti-Sikh riots.
Among the constituencies, West Delhi which is till date in bag of Congress might invite a tough fight due to its considerable Sikh-Punjabi population, especially in areas like Hari Nagar, Tilag Nagar, Rajouri Garden where a bulk of ‘84 riot affected families are settled in.
As of now, the real fight is between the two old rivals where Congress clearly has the edge over the Bharatiya Janata Party, if one takes into account the last assembly election result.
20 candidates with criminal record
According to the National Election Watch (NEW), 20 out of the total 158 scrutinised affidavits [Total candidate=160] of the contestants in 7 constituencies in Phase 4 have some kind of criminal records. And there are 7 candidates who are charged with heinous crimes, which include murder (IPC 302), attempt to murder (IPC 307), kidnapping (IPC 365) and extortion (IPC 384).
Among the national parties, BJP has fielded four candidates with criminal background while BSP has three and Congress (INC) one. Furthermore, NEW lists four Red Alert constituencies where there are three or more candidates contesting with criminal antecedents.
The NGO also lists 33 millionaires (Crorepatis) contesting elections in Delhi –7 are from INC, 5 from BSP and 5 from BJP. Among major parties, the average asset per candidate for BSP is 113 crores, Congress 7 crores and BJP 2 crores. To the contrary, two candidates have declared their assets as zero, while four have declared assets of less than Rs 20,000.
* National Election Watch (NEW) is a congregation of over 1200 non-government organisations (NGOs) including the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) working on electoral reforms, improving democracy and governance in India. It is active in almost all states making disclosure of educational, financial and criminal background of electoral candidates.
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