North West Delhi: Residents cry poor law and order situation resulting in spurt of crimes
New Delhi: North West Delhi is a constituency comprising majority of rural villages, JJ slums besides unuthorised colonies, where people want overall development in the entire area with better civic amenities. But water crisis during summer season, sewer issue, need of more public hospitals, schools, colleges, better connectivity with metro expansion up to last mile besides other means of public transport, rising pollution, water logging, garbage crisis, etc are the issues which are being raised by the residents before the candidates seeking support. For women voters, their safety and security is the main concern as they claim to go through hardships during evening hours. The residents rue poor law and order situation in the area resulting in spurt of crime incidents these days. Unemployment is also a big issue for youth voters as majority of them are going to vote for the first time.
"The entire belt is underdeveloped most backward part of the Capital city and the elected representatives have thoroughly ignored the belt which can be easily seen here. At the time of elections, they make tall claims but disappear once they are elected. Despite the ignorance, we are hopeful of development of the region. We want a representative who could understand the issue of public interests well and could handle them," say the majority of residents who are going to choose their leader this time.
Voting for Lok Sabha election in Delhi will be held on May 12. For the 2019 election, Bharatiya Janata Party has fielded Punjabi Sufi folk singer Hans Raj Hans against Congress leader Rajesh Lilothia and Guggan Singh Ranga of Aam Aadmi Party. BJP's sitting MP Udit Raj was denied a ticket by the party following which the disgruntled leader joined the Congress.
The BJP had dropped Udit Raj as candidate and replaced him with singer-politician Hans Raj Hans in the North West Delhi constituency, keeping this announcement for the last after naming most other candidates. Both the BJP and the Congress candidates, Punjabi Sufi Singer Hans Raj Hans and two time MLA Rajesh Lilothia, belong to Valmiki Community, which are much less in comparison of jatav, while the AAP fielded Guggan Singh Ranga, a former Bawana MLA who is Jatav and inhabitant of North-West Constituency. Among the others contesting the election are Suresh Kumar from Socialist Janata Party, Nand Kishor from Pragatishil Samajwadi Party (Lohia) and Ram Kumar from Bhartiya Pragatisheel Congress.
The AAP candidate, one side, is claiming to address these issues if elected, while the BJP candidate is banking support on national issues. The Congress candidate, on the other hand, is promising to provide an alternate claiming that both AAP and BJP have failed to handle the prevailing scenario. "People of Delhi are fed up with misgovernance of both the parties as they are engaged in blame games only. The Congress which has not only the long serving party in Delhi as well as Centre but knows the ground reality very well. The party knows how to handle public interests' issues hence seeking mandate this time," said Congress candidate Rajesh Lilothia in a road show.
In the restructuring of constituecines in 2008, it was made a reserved seat, which is dominated by old inhabitants, Jats, Dalits, Brahmins, OBCs and Muslim voters. Besides village, 20 JJ clusters and resettlement colonies like Sultanpuri, Mangolpuri, Bawana, Shahbad Dairy and Sarda Gevra also fall under this Constituency. North West Delhi has a sex ratio of 862 females for every 1000 males, while the literacy rate in the constituency is 84.66 percent.
On the other hand, Urban pockets like Rohini (DDA flats) and group housing societies, Prashant Vihar and Behra enclave and unauthorised regularised colonies like Budh Viahr, Raja Vihar, Vijay Vihar, shivaji Vihar, New Punjabi colony, Narela, Swaroop Nagar, Mahavir Vihar, Sewak Park, Kirari, Prem Nagar are situated in the region.
North-West parliamentary constituency has 70 per cent migrant population from Haryana and Western UP mostly middle-level working class. There are also 20 percent Purvanchalis from eastern UP, Bihar and Jharkhand.
According to chief Electoral Office, total voters are 23,78,984, out of which 13,04,555 are males and 10,72,289 are femals while 158 are third gender. According to caste composition of voters, SC is 20.66 per cent, OBC-20.12 per cent, Brahmin 12.24 per cent, Jat-11.89 per cent, Vaishya -10.12 per cent, Muslim-8.88 per cent, Punjabi -6.62 per cent, Sikh-1.86 per cent and middle class- 4.27 per cent.
North West Delhi parliamentary constituency comprises 10 assembly segments namely Nerela, Badli, Rithala, Bawana, Mundka, Kirari, Sultanpur Majra, Nangloi Jat, Mangol Puri and Rohini.
In 2014 Lok Sabha election, Bharatiya Janata Party's Udit Raj had won the seat with a margin of 1,06,802 votes. Udit Raj had bagged 6,29,860 votes as against Aam Aadmi Party's Rakhi Birla who got the second spot with 5,23,058 votes. Congress leader Krishna Tirath was pushed to the third spot with just 1,57,468 votes.
In the 2014 election in North West Delhi, 76.9 per cent or 13,56,404 voters had exercised their franchise. Of the 14 contestants who were in the fray, 12 had lost their deposits.
