Delhi polls: Gandhi Nagar constituency set for battle of the turncoats | Latest News Delhi

New Delhi

A Congress bastion from the late 1990s to 2015, the Bharatiya Janata Party won the Gandhi Nagar assembly constituency election in 2020 only for a second time. Seeking a consecutive win, the BJP is fielding 56-year-old Arvinder Singh Lovely, the former Delhi Congress head, against the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP’s) 60-year-old candidate Naveen Chaudhary, popularly known as Deepu Chaudhary, and Congress’s 52-year-old candidate Kamal Arora, a businessman-turned-politician who was associated with the Congress for 16 years before joining the AAP in 2012 and returning for this year’s polls.

The constituency, synonymous with its namesake market, is one of the country’s biggest readymade garment hubs, according to traders, who estimate that besides 25,000 shops and showrooms, neighbourhoods in the constituency host several manufacturing hubs that generate a daily turnover of crores of rupees.

The main source of livelihood for the majority of the people living in the constituency is business, rental income, and daily wages.

According to the Election Commission’s final electoral rolls, the constituency has 172,322 voters, comprising 94,494 male, 77,818 female, and 10 third-gender electors. The number of electors was 182,831 in 2020, implying a reduction of 10,500 voters this time around.

The contestants

The BJP’s Arvinder Singh Lovely is a prominent Sikh leader and is considered the favourite to win the seat, according to locals, but many also said he has lost electors’ trust due to switching sides, given that he held important portfolios in the Sheila Dikshit-led Congress government in the Capital.

Lovely joined the BJP last May, within a week of quitting as the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee chief. He started his political career in the 1990s, being elected the Congress MLA from the constituency four consecutive times—in 1998, 2003, 2008 and 2013. He contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from the East Delhi parliamentary constituency but lost to BJP’s Gautam Gambhir by over 391,000 votes.

He has replaced sitting MLA Anil Kumar Bajpai as the BJP’s candidate for the constituency. Bajpai won the 2020 elections narrowly, beating out AAP’s Naveen Chaudhary by 6,079 votes.

Arvinder Singh Lovely did not respond to requests for comment.

The AAP has fielded Naveen Chaudhary for the second time in a row, given his strong performance last time around. A social worker and activist, Chaudhary is a Congress turncoat, having been with the party from 2015 to 2020. He started his political career in the late 1990s, initially contesting in 1998 as an independent candidate.

“I have been active in the constituency for the past five years and have been contributing through social services, such as arranging water tankers for people living in the neighbourhoods where tapped water supply is affected. I have been holding medical camps, distributing free medicines to the poor, and solemnising weddings of brides from financially poor families. I am also seeking votes on the basis of various welfare schemes that the AAP government implemented in Delhi in the past 12 years,” Chaudhary said.

Congress candidate Kamal Arora, popularly known as “Dabbu”, started his political career with the Youth Congress in 1996 and remained with the party till 2011, before joining the AAP upon its formation. As he was not given a ticket by the AAP this time around, he returned to the Congress days before being chosen as its candidate.

“I joined the AAP because the party’s vision was different, and it influenced many honest aspiring politicians like myself. But the ideologies and preferences of the party leaders changed over the years. Like the other parties, they also gave preference to wealthy people in ticket distribution. And that is the reason why I quit the AAP and returned to the Congress just two days before the list,” Arora said.

The electorate

The Gandhi Nagar assembly segment, which is part of the East Delhi Lok Sabha constituency, is located along the Yamuna Pushta Road in the west, the Grand Trunk (GT) Road in the north, Swami Dayanand Marg connecting Patparganj with Shahdara in the east, and the Vikas Marg in the south. It has a diverse demography: a mix of traders and workers from Hindu, Punjabi and Muslim communities.

According to local legend, the Gandhi Nagar market was started by an enterprising group of five businessmen as an extension of their homes in 1972-73, as an experiment—locals say most people preferred to buy fabric and get them stitched then.

According to multiple estimates, 25% of the electorate is made up of Muslims, who are concentrated in clusters and unauthorised colonies in Shastri Park, Seelampur, Kanti Nagar and Kailash Nagar. The Hindu electorate is a mix of multiple subdivisions, from the trading community to the priest community, who are concentrated in Gandhi Nagar, Dharampura, Raghubarpura 1 and 2, Rajgarh Colony, old and new Seelampur, east and west Azad Nagar, Shankar Nagar and Shankar Nagar Extension.

Neighbourhoods in the constituency are congested due to the sheer volume of business establishments, affluent families have moved to localities around Anand Vihar and newer developments in Noida, Indirapuram, Vaishali and Vasundhara in Uttar Pradesh.

Voters’ issues

Given the heavy mix of manufacturing business and residential use, residents of the area face a wide array of issues, key among them being traffic congestion in encroached lanes, overflowing sewerage network, choked drains, broken roads, unauthorised parking and poor water supply. Traffic congestion is especially severe on the main road leading from the Pushta Road to the markets.

Traders say the increased number of e-rickshaws have worsened the traffic problem in the area, due to lack of parking space and open violation of traffic rules.

“Traffic problems had slightly improved during Lovely’s tenure as the MLA after a road divider was constructed on the market road. However, the divider disappeared over the past few years and people are back to the days of massive traffic jams,” said Mohit Gupta, a local trader.

A local shopkeeper, not wishing to be named, said parking mafia is another key problem. “Parking along the Yamuna Pushta Road is illegally run by parking mafias in collusion with police and authorities. Even as the old unauthorised parking space was removed during the construction of the Delhi-Dehradun Expressway, parking mafias are back to their illegal business, and have now occupied service lanes and open spaces under the flyway.”

In 2023, the Delhi government announced the redevelopment of the Gandhi Nagar market, comprising the construction of two multilevel parking lots, overhaul of road and drainage infrastructure, fire safety system and deployment of golf carts to alleviate traffic woes and provide last-mile connectivity. However, the project is yet to see the light of the day.

Residents said that water supply is also a major concern, given the supply of dirty water through taps, necessitating them to depend on bottled water or buying expensive water purifiers. “Water comes through taps in the morning and evening but it’s not drinkable. The reason is the old pipelines that have not been replaced for years,” said Pushpa Arora, a resident of Raghubarpura No 2.

Women said that the lack of toilets in the market is another issue the new MLA must address, as toilets previously constructed were either removed or encroached upon by traders.

“If you want to understand the public toilet issue in Gandhi Nagar market, just visit areas below the Delhi-Dehradun Expressway. You will find people standing in lines on the footpath along the walls of the flyway to urinate. The urine flows down to the main road and the area is always stinking,” said Manoj Jain, a trader.

Locals, however, were unwilling to openly declare their allegiance given that all three candidates are influential persons in the constituency.