The Rajouri Garden by-election will be held on April 9 and its result will be out on April 13, just about two weeks before the Delhi Municipal elections.
The Assembly seat fell vacant after Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislator Jarnail Singh quit to contest from the Lambi seat in Punjab against Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) patron Parkash Singh Badal.
This time, however, AAP has fielded a new face in Harjeet Singh. What is interesting is that Manjinder Singh Sirsa, who previously had fought the seat as an SAD candidate, will this time contest under the banner of BJP. In 2015, Sirsa was defeated by Jarnail Singh by over 10,000 votes.
The Congress, meanwhile, have fielded Meenakshi Chandela, daughter-in-law of Dayanand Chandela, a well-known as muscle man in Vishnu Garden and Khyala. Meenakshi is currently a sitting Councillor of Khyala municipal ward in South MCD, while her husband is a sitting Councillor from the neighbouring Vishnu Garden ward.
Congress leader Ajay Maken had on three previous occasions – 1993, 1998 and 2003 – won the Assembly seat.
After the delimitation of seats in 2008, Vishnu Garden and Khayala wards were added to Rajouri Garden Assembly Constituency. In the 2008 election, Dayanand Chandela won the seat against SAD's Avtar Singh, by a slender margin of 46 votes.
In the 2013 Assembly polls, Chandela fielded his wife Dhanwati on a Congress ticket, but she lost to then SAD candidate Sirsa.
After his wife's loss, Chandela caught everyone's attention when he vowed that he would not wear any shoes, until his family wins the Rajouri Garden seat.
AAP, however, had withdrawn its then candidate Pritpal Singh Saluja days before polling in 2013 after a criminal case cropped up against him.
The constituency is dominated by Sikh and Punjabi voters, who constitute about 99,000 of the 1.67 lakh residents. Sikhs are about 53,300 in number, while there are around 46,000 non-Sikh Punjabis in the constituency.
Vishnu Garden, a popular area of Rajouri Garden constituency is an almost exclusively Sikh locality. The third largest electorate in the area is that of the Schedule caste category, of which there are nearly 24,000 voters. Purvanchalli voters, mostly residing in Khyala area, are over 23,000 in number, whereas Muslims voters are around 12,500.
Despite Rajouri Garden and Vishnu Garden being purely commercial areas, the numbers of Baniaya voters is surprisingly low, with only around 12,000 registered voters. Voters of the Gujarati and Gujjar communities are around 6,000 and 3,000 in number, respectively.
Regular traffic snarls, an acute parking crisis and defaced streets and rampant unauthorised constructions are some of the major concerns of residents of Rajouri Garden. And Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party would be all ears to such concerns if they are to win the seat.
Meanwhile, AAP workers have claimed that the party has fulfilled most of its poll promises, including slashing electricity tariff by half and providing free water to every household.
Additionally, the government's Mohalla Clinics initiative and the provision of free diagnostic tests as well free medicines in 37 government hospitals have boosted its chances of regaining Rajouri Garden seat.