Congress Steps Up Its Electoral Campaign

New Delhi: While it has launched its electoral campaign in all the 70 assembly constituencies in Delhi, Congress is concentrating on a handful of seats where minorities, OBC and Scheduled Caste voters have a significant presence. According to a party official, while strengthening their cadre and reviving the vote bank at the grassroots remains important, the party is particularly focused on re-establishing connections with the social minorities and the slum residents, who have traditionally been loyal Congress supporters.
“Minority-dominated constituencies such as Mustafabad, Seelampur, Okhla, Babarpur, Chandni Chowk, Matia Mahal, Ballimaran and Gokulpuri have consistently supported us through the years,” the Congress functionary said. “This explains why we secured substantial votes during the previous assembly and Lok Sabha elections. We have already declared candidates for most of these constituencies to ensure sufficient time for making the constituents aware of our party’s guarantees.”
On Thursday, the party also confirmed party senior Rahul Gandhi’s first public meeting in the capital in Seelampur on Jan 13. Congress has nominated former AAP MLA Abdul Rehman for the Seelampur constituency while former Congress govt minister Haroon Yusuf will contest from Ballimaran. In Mustafabad, the Congress candidate is Ali Mehndi, while former Delhi AAP minister Asim Ahmed Khan will contest for the party from Matia Mahal and former AAP MLA Mohammad Ishraq Khan from the Babarpur assembly constituency.
Congress also reported intensifying visits and giving assurance to residents of JJ clusters on addressing their problems. “These localities have remained underdeveloped and have lacked proper sanitation facilities for years,” said the party functionary. “Despite AAP’s promises, water distribution continues to be inconsistent in these areas. During community visits, our members have highlighted the developmental initiatives to boost living conditions undertaken under former CM Sheila Dikshit’s leadership. Our objective is to ensure these residents become active participants in the development agenda.”
The party is also directing attention at constituencies where it secured double-digit vote share percentage in the previous electoral contests.
In the 2020 assembly elections, Congress managed to get more than 10,000 votes in seven constituencies, including Badli, from where current DPCC president Devender Yadav contested and garnered 27,483 votes. The others are Gandhi Nagar (Arvinder Singh Lovely with 21,913 votes), Kasturba Nagar (Abhishek Dutt, 19,648 votes), Hari Nagar (Surinder Sethia, 10,394 votes), Seelampur (Chaudhary Mateen Ahmed, 20,247 votes), Jangpura (Tarvinder Singh Marwah, 13,565 votes) and Bawana (Surender Kumar with 12,803 votes).
In these seven assembly constituencies, the party’s earlier candidates in Gandhi Nagar and Seelampur have since shifted allegiance to BJP and AAP. This means Congress has to be prepared to face a big challenge for the two seats.
Courtesy : TOI
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