Pollution, sanitation, unauthorised colonies to be key polls issues in East Delhi

Pollution, sanitation and unauthorised colonies are some of the issues that will play a key role in deciding the electoral fate of the AAP, the BJP and the Congress in the East Delhi parliamentary constituency. One of the highly populated Lok Sabha constituencies, East Delhi has a mix of affluent, middle class and low-profile clusters. It has majorly been a BJP bastion for around the last three decades with the exception of two terms of Sandeep Dikshit, son of former chief minister Sheila Dikshit.

Residents of East Delhi see the election as a battle between Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Congress chief Rahul Gandhi. Majority of locals point out that despite unauthorised colonies being a prominent agenda of political parties for long, nothing has been done yet and several pockets are still struggling for basic amenities like sanitation, clean drinking water and getting fixed the blocked sewers.

"These neighbourhoods have problems related to sanitation, clean drinking water, security, blocked sewers and encroachments and none of the parties despite making tall claims and promises have not worked on regularizing them," Shweta, a 55-year-old resident of Okhla, says. She says all leaders promise to regularise these colonies before the polls, but put it in cold storage after the polls are over.

The seat includes commercial areas like Laxminagar and Gandhi Nagar where 20 per cent of voters are traders, while areas like Shakarpur, Vinod Nagar, Mayur Vihar, Shahdra, Ghondli and Mandawali has a high population of migrants. Okhla is one of the Muslim dominated areas while Trilokpuri is a communally sensitive pocket.

The seat will witness a three-way fight between the BJP's Gautam Gambhir, AAP's Atishi Marlena and Arvinder Singh Lovely of the Congress. While cricketer-turned-politician Gambhir and Marlena will make their poll debut, Lovely is a three time MLA and a former Delhi minister.

The BJP's major poll plank is nationalism, while the Congress is wooing voters with the development work carried out during the term of Sheila Dikshit. On the other hand, the AAP has made full statehood for Delhi a major campaign agenda. Gambhir has replaced Maheish Girri as the BJP candidate from the seat. In his vision document, he has pledged conversion of Ghazipur landfill into a green space, utilisation of waste to generate energy, clean Yamuna project and bringing a Delhi University campus in East Delhi.

Marlena, also a political debutante from the seat where AAP's Rajmohan Gandhi was defeated by Girri by more than 1.9 lakh votes in 2014, is highlighting the Kejriwal government's achievements in education, health, water and power sectors. Congress's Lovely, who had joined the BJP in 2017 ahead of the Delhi civic polls that year and returned to the Congress fold in February 2018, is known to be a Sheila Dikshit loyalist.

A prominent Sikh face in the national capital, the Congress is hopeful that his candidature would help bolster the party's poll prospects. Pollution is another major issue in the constituency. Anand Vihar, Shahdara and surrounding areas see high pollution levels with residents asserting that the Ghazipur Land fill site has been a major heath hazard for long.

Aasif, a resident of the slum settlements adjoining the Ghazipur landfill, says, "Often the supplied water gets mixed with sewage. Also, there is foul smell emanating all the time from the open sewers and garbage pile ups. People here often fall ill and there are no proper medical facilities available in the area." Another resident feels nobody will do anything for them.

"It does not matter whether BJP, Congress or AAP comes to power. Nobody will do anything for us. We have accepted our condition as our fate," Sohana, a resident of the area, says. Residents of Trilokpuri, Shakarpur, Mandawali, and Shadara cite law and order as a major issue in the area and allege women do not feel safe outside their homes at night.

Delhi will go to polls on Sunday. Counting of votes will be done on May 23.

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