Free from rampant illegal construction, floating migrant population and major infrastructural woes, the New Delhi parliamentary constituency is also called ‘lucky indicator’ as the party winning here captures power at the Centre, which has been happening since the late ’90s.

“This has been an interesting trend and we believe that many politicians and even the residents are superstitious about this unique ‘indicator’ constituency,” said Jagmohan, who stays in the servant quarter of Sujan Singh Park and runs a kiosk here. He said electricity and water supply has never been a problem here. “Security concerns are limited with the constituency offering great public transport network and even schools and hospitals…in that sense, it is a good place to be. But the area has a very distinct set of problems,” he added.

The small and medium traders also agreed to this. After the sealing of commercial units, the trading community has been appealing to the State and Centre to intervene on their behalf.

The sealing drive started on the Supreme Court-appointed monitoring committee’s orders in December 2017 and over 6,000 commercial units were sealed across Delhi. Several traders echoed while “statehood is not an issue but the Centre should leave the State government alone”.

“Markets including, Defence Colony, Khanna Market, Meharchand Market, Amar Colony Market, Motia Khan, etc, have all borne the brunt of the sealing drive. We feel that traders are caught between the Central and State governments with neither of them being powerful enough to help us. Adding to our problems is the power tussle between the two governments,” said Alok Tripathi, who has a shop in Khanna Market. Delhi’s trading community is considered a traditional vote bank of the BJP and is known to have a decisive role in the elections. The community said hit by demonetisation, GST and sealing, “traders have been at the receiving end for far too long.”

‘We want welfare’

“DPCC president Sheila Dikshit was running this same government without statehood being an issue. People are worried about jobs, job security, escalating cost of education, felling of trees and rising air pollution. We want the government to work on these issues...statehood and power struggle can wait. We are not interested in politics. We want welfare,” said Balbir Sharma, who lives in Mansarover Garden and works as a manager in a private firm.

Mr. Sharma added that he is not sure that Delhi will “function as well as it does now if power is given to only the State government.”

But many in the constituency said the overall work done by AAP in terms of mohalla clinics, mobile health vans, mobile garbage collection vans and improvement of Delhi government schools has helped them. Hema Devi has three children studying in government schools in R.K. Puram. She said the education standard has improved.

“Teachers come regularly and copies are checked. We have regular parent-teacher meetings, which were earlier just an eyewash. I would like to see an AAP member in the Parliament.” However, the LGBTQIA community said they were expecting a lot from APP’s manifesto because “we always saw this as a party with a difference”. “We are disappointed to say that this time, AAP has been a huge let down for the disability and the LGBTQIA community. Never have we seen any party taking such a huge U-turn. In 2014, they had a four-point agenda but this one is a complete disaster as there is no mention of them,” said disability rights activist Satendra Singh, a doctor at the University College of Medical Sciences and GTB Hospital, Delhi.