Rajouri Garden bypoll: Voters say AAP MLA deserted them

It was 11:15 am and the result for the Rajouri Garden assembly constituency was yet to be declared. The party workers, however, started celebrating outside the counting station as BJP-SAD candidate Manjinder Singh Sirsa was leading by more than 7,000 votes.

A little distance away in a residential block of Rajouri Garden, around ten to twelve people, most in their mid-forties, were discussing the outcome of the polls.

“The credit for BJP’s victory goes to Aam Aadmi Party. We chose Jarnail Singh (AAP’s MLA who vacated the seat to fight Punjab polls) but he left us midway. We had chosen him over Sirsa in 2015 but he didn’t respect the mandate.”

People in both urban and rural areas offered different reasons for not backing the AAP candidate. While the problem of parking and sanitation figured on the priority list of in urban pockets of Rajouri Garden and Tagore Graden, people living in slum and village areas said issues of road maintenance, sewerage overflow and lack of clean water were not addressed in the past two years.

However, what figured in most people’s grievances was Jarnail Singh ‘deserting’ his voters to fight Punjab polls.

In Subhash Nagar JJ colony voters said that the former AAP MLA never came to meet them after winning when they struggled for basic amenities like good roads, and potable water.

Tarique Shah, a resident of the area said, “We complained about non-availability of water several times but nothing happened. The MLA was busy campaigning in Punjab for the past six months.”

Dharam Chandila, of Khyala village said, “This village is traditionally a Congress stronghold. Several people in the village had supported Kejriwal in 2015 even though he had left the government after 49 days of forming the government. But, Jarnail did the same thing.”

“This is the reason that the AAP could not make a lead in any of the rounds during the counting,” he said.

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