New Delhi.
The Election Commission can announce the dates for the assembly elections in Delhi today. The ruling Aam Aadmi Party, Congress and BJP have announced the names of some of their candidates. The seat about which we are going to talk today can be the biggest and interesting contest of this year.
Actually, this is the seat of New Delhi, from where Sheila Dikshit once won and became the Chief Minister. Later, Aam Aadmi Party chief Arvind Kejriwal won the same New Delhi seat by defeating Sheila Dikshit and till now he remains the MLA of Delhi from this seat. This time too, Arvind Kejriwal is the candidate from Aam Aadmi Party on this seat. On the other hand, Congress has fielded Sandeep Dixit on this seat. Sandeep Dikshit is the son of former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and is in the fray to avenge his mother’s defeat to Kejriwal 11 years ago. Apart from this, the third name is of BJP candidate Pravesh Verma. He himself is the son of former Delhi CM Sahib Singh Verma. The contest between these three leaders has made the assembly elections on New Delhi seat the most interesting. In such a situation, it is important to know what is the history of New Delhi Assembly seat? What is the political history of the candidates contesting from this seat this time? What is their strength? Apart from this, how much is his wealth? Let us know…
What is the history of New Delhi Assembly seat?
New Delhi Assembly seat is one of the most important seats among the 70 seats of Delhi Assembly. In fact, its history and the faces standing here have always made this seat special. Before the New Delhi Assembly constituency came into existence in 1993, it was called Gole Bazar Assembly seat. However, ever since the creation of a separate seat of New Delhi, big leaders have been continuously trying their luck here.
1. It came into the hands of BJP for the first time itself.
Since 1993, elections have been held seven times on the New Delhi Assembly seat. For the first time, when elections were held on this seat, Bharatiya Janata Party’s Kirti Azad defeated Congress candidate Brij Mohan Bhama from here. However, this contest was very close and the difference between victory and defeat was 3500 votes. The surprising thing is that after this election, BJP has not been able to win the New Delhi seat again. In the next six elections, Congress won thrice and Aam Aadmi Party thrice.
2. Again Congress strengthened its claim
In the second election held in 1998, the Congress Party under the leadership of Sheila Dikshit had won this seat. Sheila Dikshit was then creating the identity of a strong leader in Congress. This victory strengthened his claim in Delhi and the party made him the Chief Minister. After this, Sheila Dikshit won from here twice more – in 2003 and 2008 and held the post of Chief Minister.
3. Congress-BJP are not able to defeat Arvind Kejriwal
Elections were again held for Delhi Assembly in 2013. This time a new party Aam Aadmi Party tried its luck and party chief Arvind Kejriwal decided to challenge Sheila Dikshit from this seat. He was successful in this challenge and succeeded in forming the government by ending the 15-year rule of Sheila Dikshit and Congress. How big Kejriwal’s victory was can be gauged from the fact that he won against a Chief Minister by more than 26 thousand votes. Kejriwal got 44,269 votes on this seat, while Sheila Dikshit got 18,405 votes. BJP’s Vijendra Gupta was in third place on this seat with 17,952 votes. After a hung assembly in 2013, Congress formed the government by giving outside support to AAP. Then Arvind Kejriwal, who won from New Delhi Assembly seat, became the CM of Delhi. However, in 2015 itself, Congress withdrew this support and elections were held again in Delhi. This time again Kejriwal contested elections from the same seat and was successful in winning a bumper victory by securing 64 percent votes. Kejriwal got more than 57 thousand votes and easily defeated BJP’s Nupur Sharma (25,630 votes) and Congress’s Kiran Walia (4,781 votes). In this way Kejriwal became the Chief Minister of Delhi for the second consecutive time. In the Delhi Assembly elections held in 2020, Kejriwal again contested from New Delhi seat. Due to seven years of anti-incumbency, the number of votes of Kejriwal (46,758 votes) definitely declined. But his victory margin remained above 20 thousand votes. He got 61 percent votes in this election. BJP’s Sunil Kumar Yadav (25,061 votes) and Congress’s Romesh Sabharwal (3,220 votes) lost the election from here.
What is the political strength of the people contesting this time?
1. Arvind Kejriwal
This time Arvind Kejriwal is again in the fray from New Delhi seat. The last three victories have already revealed a lot about his political power. However, it is important to talk about his personal life and property also. In his affidavit given before the elections in 2020, his (Arvind and his wife) total assets were stated to be Rs 3 crore 44 lakh 42 thousand 870. He had total cash of Rs 22,000, Rs 33 lakh 29 thousand in bank deposits, Rs 15 lakh 31 thousand in bond-stocks, around Rs 6 lakh 20 thousand in motor vehicles and jewelery worth Rs 12 lakh 40 thousand. That means Kejriwal and his wife had movable assets worth Rs 67 lakh before the 2020 elections. Not only this, Kejriwal also has a house land in Ghaziabad worth Rs 1 crore 77 lakh. He also has a flat worth Rs 1 crore in Gurugram. In this regard, he also has immovable property worth a total of Rs 2 crore 77 lakh. A total of 13 cases were registered against him till 2020, out of which many cases are registered from Delhi to Assam and from Uttar Pradesh to Goa.
2. Sandeep Dixit
From New Delhi seat, Congress party has fielded Sandeep Dikshit, son of former MP and Sheila Dikshit. The party is confident that Sandeep can give a tough competition to Arvind Kejriwal from here. His strength can be gauged from the fact that he has been a Lok Sabha MP by winning on the party’s ticket in 2004 and 2009. However, he lost this seat during the Modi wave in 2014. Later the party assigned him posts in the organization itself. However, after Sheila Dikshit stepped down from the post of Delhi CM, Sandeep Dikshit gradually became marginalized in the Congress.
Now does Dixit tell the reason for contesting the assembly elections?
Sandeep says, see now people have known ‘AAP’ and ‘BJP’ very well. People have come to know that the present government is not doing anything. She is carrying forward the schemes made during the time of Dixit. Where are new schools and colleges built in Delhi? Sandeep said, in this election the Congress Party will be successful in regaining its vote bank which was captured by the Aam Aadmi Party.
How much is the property and how many criminal cases?
Sandeep Dixit last contested the Lok Sabha elections in 2014 from East Delhi. Then in his affidavit, he had declared total assets of Rs 7.3 crore, which was almost five times more than the assets of Rs 1.8 crore in 2009. He had declared his and his wife’s movable assets to be Rs 1.6 crore. In this, he was said to have Rs 39 thousand in cash and about Rs 12 lakh in his bank account. He had around Rs 11 lakh in bonds and stocks. He had Rs 13.20 lakh in postal savings, NSS and Rs 7.75 lakh in other insurance policies including LIC. Apart from this, he was said to have six cars worth Rs 11.76 lakh, which included Nissan Micra to Mahindra Bolero cars. Apart from this, he also had jewelery worth Rs 31.2 lakh. On the other hand, his immovable assets were said to be around Rs 6 crore, of which agricultural land was worth Rs 4.54 crore. It was a residential building worth Rs 1.21 crore. Not only this, he also had a debt of more than Rs 88.72 lakh.
3. Pravesh Verma
BJP announced Parvesh Verma as its candidate from New Delhi Assembly seat in its first list itself. How big a step the announcement of his name was for the BJP is evident from the fact that the discussion about his contesting from here was going on since last month. Former state BJP president Adesh Gupta, OBC Morcha president Sunil Yadav and Vinod Binny, who joined BJP from Aam Aadmi Party, were staking their claim from this seat. However, leaving everyone behind, Pravesh Verma confirmed his claim on this seat. In fact, the face who defeats Arvind Kejriwal and Sandeep Dixit on this high profile seat can also be the next contender for the post of Chief Minister in Delhi. The candidate who has won the same seat for the last six consecutive times is holding the reins of the capital. In such a situation, this time also it was necessary for BJP to field a big face on this seat. Pravesh Verma is also the son of the former Chief Minister here. His father Saheb Singh Verma was the fourth Chief Minister of Delhi between February 1996 and October 1998. Pravesh Verma had contested the assembly elections in Delhi for the first time in 2013. Then he stood from Mehrauli seat and defeated Yogananda Shastri, who had also been the speaker in the Delhi Assembly. In 2014, he contested the West Delhi Lok Sabha seat and won. Apart from this, in 2019 he became MP for the second consecutive time. He defeated Aam Aadmi Party’s Mahabal Mishra from West Delhi by 5.78 lakh votes, which was the biggest victory. This is the record of the biggest victory in terms of votes in Delhi.
How much property, how many criminal cases?
In 2019, Pravesh Verma had declared his assets worth Rs 15 crore 51 lakh 95 thousand. This was one and a half times more than the assets of Rs 10 crore 72 lakh 35 thousand declared in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. He and his wife then had more than Rs 3.77 lakh in cash in 2019. Apart from this, there was Rs 80.74 lakh in the bank, Rs 50 thousand in bonds-stocks, LIC and other insurance policies worth more than Rs 61 lakh. Apart from this, Pravesh Verma and his wife had two cars worth more than Rs 30 lakh, which included a Fortuner and a Baleno car. He had jewelery worth Rs 65 lakh 27 thousand and other movable assets worth Rs 53.21 lakh. Talking about immovable property, there is agricultural land worth Rs 4.55 crore near Pravesh. There was also non-agricultural use land worth Rs 4.80 crore, a commercial building worth more than Rs 2 crore and a flat worth more than Rs 95 lakh. In this sense, their (Pravesh and his wife) total wealth was recorded at more than Rs 15 crore.
