Rajinder Nagar bypoll: AAP, BJP reach out to voters as campaigning comes to end

Campaigning for Rajinder Nagar bypoll here ended on Tuesday evening with major contenders AAP and the BJP reaching out to the voters through roadshow as well as door-to-door campaigns and claiming victory ahead of voting on June 23.

Senior AAP leader and Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh asserted that party candidate Durgesh Pathak will defeat BJP's Rajesh Bhatia with a ''huge margin'' in the bypoll.

Congress candidate Prem Lata also reached out to voters with a door-to-door campaign and claimed that she had support of the youth and women in Rajinder Nagar BJP leaders, including Gorakhpur MP Ravi Kishan, northwest Delhi MP Hans Raj Hans and Delhi unit chief Adesh Gupta along with hundreds of party workers and leaders participated in a road show on Tuesday.

''My experience from two weeks of extensive campaigning is that people are fed up by the neglect of Rajinder Nagar by the last two MLAs of Aam Aadmi Party and have made up their mind to vote for the BJP in this by-election,'' Gupta said.

He said water shortage and lack of development by the AAP government will prove costly to the party in the bypoll.

Kishan said lakhs of Purvanchali voters in the area have not forgotten the ''ill treatment'' they got from the Arvind Kejriwal government during the Covid pandemic. They have also been deprived of benefits of Central schemes like the Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme has not been implemented by the government in Delhi, he said.

The BJP is counting on the Punjab background of Bhatia as a factor in its favour. The Rajinder Nagar constituency has a large pocket of Punjabi voters.

The AAP also claimed on Tuesday that it will record a ''historic victory'' in the Rajinder Nagar assembly bypoll as the campaign for the election came to a close.

Singh exhuded confidence about the Pathak's victory, saying ''During the poll campaign, mood of the people was very positive and in favour of the AAP. In every ward, there was much appreciation for the work done by the Kejriwal government,'' he said.

Congress candidate Prem Lata ended her campaign with a door-to-door campaign in the constituency and claimed that she has support of the youth and women in Rajinder Nagar. She promised to solve the water crisis in the constituency if elected as an MLA.

During the three week-long campaigning, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal participated in three roadshows in support of AAP candidate.

Kejriwal appealed the voters to choose 'Jhadoo' (AAP symbol) if they wanted development of Rajinder Nagar and the BJP if they wanted 'jhagda' (quarrels) while campaigning in the Karol Bagh area of the constituency on June 17.

The BJP too mounted an intensive campaign with dozens of street corner meetings and road shows by its leaders. Several Union leaders, party MPs, MLAs and functionaries sought votes for Bhatia by reaching out to people of the constituency.

The constituency has a total of 1,64,698 voters including 72,473 females. A total of 14 candidates, including eight independents are in the fray.

The result of the bypoll will be declared after counting of votes on June 26. The bypoll was necessitated after sitting AAP MLA Raghav Chadha was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Punjab.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)