West Delhi: AAP will have to contend with a BJP rookie

The BJP and the AAP are expected to engage in a fierce race for West Delhi, the biggest of the national capital’s seven parliamentary seats.

Despite winning this seat twice in the last two general elections, the saffron party now faces a formidable battle from the AAP’s “experienced” candidate, who is now supported by the Congress vote bank as a result of seat sharing.

In her first-ever Lok Sabha election, the BJP has put up Kamaljeet Sehrawat to face AAP candidate Mahabal Mishra, who is running for parliament for the fourth time.

There are 24,88,831 eligible voters in the constituency, 13,27,008 of whom are males and 11,61,717 of them are women. In the Lok Sabha elections, 106 members of the third gender electorate will cast ballots.

Ten Assembly seats in the West Delhi seat are now controlled by the AAP: Madipur, Rajouri Garden, Hari Nagar, Tilak Nagar, Janakpuri, Vikaspuri, Uttam Nagar, Dwarka, Matiala, and Najafgarh.

Since its creation in 2009, West Delhi has participated in three general elections to far. It’s interesting to note that the party formed the government in the center after winning this seat.

Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma of the BJP won the elections in 2014 with the largest margin to that year—2.68 lakh votes. He increased his advantage even further in 2019, winning by the largest margin of 5.78 lakh votes. However, Verma was dismissed by the party and Sehrawat took leadership, therefore he will not be running in these elections.

Sehrawat, the BJP candidate, is well-known among the general public. She is a former PG commerce teacher and law graduate.

Despite this being her first Lok Sabha election, she has been well-known in the public for a while. Sehrawat has held a number of organizational roles in the Delhi BJP and the municipal corporation of the city. From 2017 to 2018, he was the Mayor of the former MCD South. Over the last ten years, Sehrawat has progressively advanced within the saffron party hierarchy, holding a number of positions including vice president of the Delhi BJP, secretary and president of the BJP Mahila Morcha, and district vice president from Najafgarh.

In West Delhi, a seat where the Jat vote has traditionally been very important, Mahabal Mishra is still holding strong among the rural area. Mishra has been involved in politics for more than 20 years. She was once a prominent Poorvanchali face of the Delhi Congress. Mishra entered the Delhi political scene in 1997 as a municipal councillor. He has since served as a three-time MLA and once as an MP on the Congress ticket. Mishra is prepared to fight and is actively campaigning in his constituency.

The constituency’s citizens are dealing with a number of problems that will affect their choice of candidate in the interim. The erratic water supply and some communities’ lack of infrastructure development will be on voters’ minds. Nonetheless, a lot of locals cited traffic congestion as their top issue, citing the dreadful drive that everyday commuters endure.