NEW DELHI: When you reach the mostly
rural expanse
of
Bawana
, you run into visible civic chaos that haphazard development has created over the years — unkempt parks, bad roads, reeking drains. Yet the people aren’t too concerned. The voters in one of the bigger constituencies of Delhi think that work is being undertaken regarding their problems by the
Arvind Kejriwal government
, and “things are getting better”. At the same time they also confess to an attraction for Narendra Modi, the face chosen by BJP for its campaign for the assembly polls to be held on February 8.
Not surprisingly, when two sisters-in-law, Rani and Pramila, were approached in Shahbad Dairy, the biggest slum cluster in the constituency, to disclose their choice of the party they would vote for, Rani pronounced,“Modi hai toh mumkin hai”. Unabashed, Pramila responded,“Dilli bole dil se, Kejriwal phir se”.
Perhaps, therefore, the battle lines are drawn mainly between the Aam Aadmi Party and BJP in Bawana, one of the 12 SC reserved constituencies in the city which has an electorate of 3.2 lakh. It is a semi-urban area with 26 rural villages, thousands of acres of agricultural land and many JJ clusters and unauthorised colonies.
Salim, a medicine store employee at Pooth Khurd, expressed happiness about the progress made since 2015. “People are not foolish. They see what has happened, what is happening. They will come out and vote accordingly,” the 25-year-old said. “Look at education, health. Nearly everyone has water connections now and most don’t even pay a paisa for it. Electricity bills have fallen to zero for many. The polls are a no-brainer.”
A Jat-dominated seat with a sizable number of Dalit and voters of similar communities and a Poorvanchali population in excess of 30%, Bawana was once a Congress stronghold. In the early 1990s, however, BJP made inroads under local Jat leader and former Delhi chief minister Sahib Singh Verma. In the 2015 assembly polls, Ved Parkash of AAP won the seat getting 1,08,928 votes. BJP’s Gugan Singh was second with 58,371, while Surender Kumar of Congress ran in third with 14,749 votes.
However, in the 2017 municipal corporation elections, of the six wards in the constituency, AAP was able to win only a single one, Begumpur. The Bawana, Pooth Khurd, Rohini C and Rohini D wards elected BJP councillors, while the Nangal Thakran seat went to an independent candidate.
In the bypolls for the assembly seat the same year, necessitated by Parkash resigning from the legislature and joining BJP, AAP candidate Ram Chander won back the party supporters, getting 59,886 votes while Parkash, fighting as the BJP’s nominee, managed just 35,834 votes. Congress candidate Surender Kumar was third, like in 2015, but more than doubled his share to 31,919 votes.
Two years later, BJP turned the tables on AAP in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The saffron party’s Udit Raj was able to collect 1,04,582 votes in this assembly segment, more than twice the 42,005 that AAP’s Rakhi Birla got. Congress candidate Krishna Tirath took 31,173 as BJP won all the seven parliamentary constituencies in the city.
Given this irregular vote pattern, who will the people of Bawana plump for on February 8? “Upar Modi, neeche Kejriwal (Modi in Lok Sabha, Kejriwal in assembly),” quipped Vishal Dabas, 40, who runs a store opposite Maharshi Valmiki Hospital. He elaborated, “For the assembly, there is no option apart from AAP. Just look around. Shahbad Dairy now has a 148-room school after 70 years of waiting. Roads have improved. A lot more remains to be done.”
It’s not a walkover for AAP though. At the Bawana bus stop, Pratap Singh, with all the sagacity of a 60-year-old, hoped Congress got votes. His reasoning: “If that party gets a sizeable share of the ballots, then BJP will win. If there is a government of the same party at the Centre and the state, more funds will come, therefore, more development.”
The higher circle rate for agriculture land has also made the rural folk happy. In December 2019, Delhi government raised the rate from Rs 53 lakh per acre to Rs 2.25-5 crore per acre. Once approved by the lieutenant governor, the new rates will apply to agricultural lands in areas notified as green-belt villages, urban villages and rural villages in Delhi, among them Bawana.
While announcing the hiked circle rate, CM Arvind Kejriwal had declared, “This is the first revision of agriculture circle rates in 11 years. It was a longstanding demand of the farmers of Delhi, who were not getting appropriate compensation at the time of acquisition of their land by the government for development projects.”
Some people, ironically, are wary about the higher rate of land price. “Itna mehenga, pata nahi ab bikega ki nahi (It’s so high, I don’t know whether I will ever be able to sell my land),” murmured Bawana resident Charan Singh, 52. A problem of plenty, so to say.