Delhi elections: In far west, a seat no one has bagged twice in a row

NEW DELHI: In Najafgarh, waterlogged streets and seemingly endless traffic snarls are key issues and, as such, the battle for this seat in the far west corner of the city will be fought around these. Sitting AAP MLA Kailash Gahlot, who holds the important portfolios of transport and environment in the incumbent government, was run close by Indian National Lok Dal’s Bharat Singh in 2015. This time around, though, the fight is likely to come from the two mainstream parties, BJP and Congress.
BJP’s Ajeet Singh Kharkari said Gahlot was now a VIP and not an “aam aadmi”. “The biggest issue here is waterlogging. With it, comes the problem of eternal traffic jams. We intend to decongest the area, build a college here and revamp the existing schools. Over the next five years, more beds will be added to the hospital here to boost healthcare,” he claimed. “Both candidates don’t belong here: one of them stays in Vasant Kunj and the other in Janakpuri. I am the only one who lives here and is accessible to the people,” Kharkari added.
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The constituency, which has a mix of rural and urban population, has interestingly never re-elected a candidate. Gahlot wants to buck this trend. “When we took charge, water supply was a huge problem. Piped water has now reached almost all colonies here. Of the 200-odd colonies here, just around 40 had proper roads and sewers. We have addressed these issues too,” Gahlot said, adding that a social welfare office, a transport authority building and several sports stadiums were built in the last five years. “We are revamping our old Najafgarh stadium and a new wrestling hall is being set up,” he said.
Gahlot said on the basis of feedback from the people for a new college, a 35-acre land had been identified. “In the first five years, we wanted to have the basic infrastructure in place. Now, we aim to connect sewers with sewer pipelines, which will be connected with the new STPs coming up in Delhi. A new college will come up here and, to ease congestion, we plan to build a flyover at the access road,” he said.
Gahlot said while his focus had been on improving greenery and the transport system in the capital, he had not let Najafgarh stay out of sight. “We recently provided a 100-acre city forest to Najafgarh. My family comes from here and I know the problems of the area better than anyone else.”
The AAP minister said that it was because of his government’s efforts that Najafgarh had access to Metro services, a claim that was quickly rebuffed by Congress candidate Sahib Singh Yadav. “Everyday, people spend 5-6 hours on road because of the traffic. We will tackle that problem. It was during Congress’ tenure that Metro was planned and has now reached Najafgarh. We will lay down sewer lines in each colony on priority,” he said.
The constituency, which has a large population base of Jats, stretches from Dichaon Kalan and Jharoda Kalan to Dhansa border with locations like Prem Nagar, Sainik Enclave, Samaspur Khalsa, Vinoba Enclave, Rajeev Vihar, Jai Vihar and Jaffarpur Kalan all included. Sunil Singh, a resident of Jaffarpur Kalan, said the area had seen tremendous improvement in the last five years, but traffic woes remained despite the huge relief coming in the form of Delhi Metro.