Lok Sabha Elections 2019: AAP raises law and order issue in South Delhi road sh...

Lok Sabha Elections 2019: AAP raises law and order issue in South Delhi road show

Sunday’s road show by Raghav Chadha, AAP candidate from South Delhi Lok Sabha seat, was the first in a series of road shows planned by the party ahead of parliamentary polls in the Capital on May 12.

lok sabha elections Updated: Apr 22, 2019 10:55 IST
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate from South Delhi constituency Raghav Chadha along with party leader Sanjay Singh at a road show on Sunday, April 21, 2019. (Sanjeev Verma/HT PHOTO)

Over 2,000 Aam Aadmi Party supporters participated in a road show in south Delhi on Sunday morning with the party candidate from the seat, Raghav Chadha, leading a cavalcade of hundreds of cards, motorbikes, cycle rickshaws, scooters and e-rickshaws. It was the first in a series of road shows planned by the party ahead of Lok Sabha polls in the Capital on May 12.

The rally started from Palam and passed through Dwarka, Mahipalpur, Vasant Kunj, Chhatarpur, Lado Sarai, Khanpur and Jamia Hamdard before culminating at Tughlaqabad.

Mostly dressed in white, the AAP supporters wore white Gandhi caps and hundreds of them waved while flags and white balloons bearing the party symbol, broom.

AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh accompanied Chadha atop a mini-truck. Women and youngsters attended the road show in large numbers with several scooters driven by women escorting the AAP leaders’ truck.

The party named the road show ‘Gunda Raj Mukti Yatra’ as it raised issues of women’s safety and law and order in South Delhi Lok Sabha constituency. Chadha blamed the sitting MP, Ramesh Bidhuri of the BJP, for the “deteriorating law and order situation in South Delhi”.

“The BJP leaders in south Delhi have used the politics of fear and intimidation for years. The people of south Delhi are scared of approaching their elected representative with their problems. People are disappointed with the BJP leaders because of their abusive and brash behaviour,” said Chadha, who is expected to file his nomination papers on Monday.

He said, “The people of South Delhi want change. They want an MP who is answerable to them and understands their needs. The purpose of this rally is to eradicate hooliganism and intimidation from South Delhi.”

Bidhuri dismissed AAP’s allegations and said that the party has no issues to raise. “The AAP does not have any issues. So, this road show was nothing but a slander campaign against me, against the party (BJP). If people of South Delhi were actually living in fear, why did they elect me MLA thrice? Why did they vote for 27 councillors, whom I had endorsed in the municipal polls? If there is anyone who is scared, it is the AAP. They are scared of the work I have done in the past five years and my popularity in the area,” the BJP MP said, who has been renominated as the BJP candidate from South Delhi.

First Published: Apr 22, 2019 10:55 IST