The Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) candidate Praveen Khandelwal won by over 89,000 votes against Congress veteran leader JP Agarwal from the Chandini Chowk constituency.
According to the BJP, Khandelwal has also “collected his certificate of winning from the Election Commission of India (ECI)”.
He is also the founder of the Confederation of All India Traders.
Out of the seven constituencies in the national capital, Chandni Chowk constituency witnessed the most fierce battle between candidates of BJP and INDIA bloc.
The area was enveloped in saffron colour despite Khandelwal trailing by 125 votes at the start of counting.
However, he took the lead over Congress candidate JP Agarwal at the end of the first round.
Suresh Kumar, a saffron party supporter, said, “BJP is leading on all the seven seats in the national capital. We already knew that this was going to happen. The people have already decided to choose BJP’s double engine government. The country wants development over corruption.”
Another party supporter, Sanjay Singhal said, “The traders of the capital want Khandelwal as he knows the problems of the area inside out and people believe that he will solve them. PM Modi will reclaim the throne of the Prime Minister for the third time and make the country a five trillion-dollar economy.”
On the other hand, Congress supporter Naresh Kumar remained hopeful.
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“Counting is still underway. We believe that the people of the constituency will choose Congress over caste politics as they are really fed up. No work has been done by the BJP in the past decade,” he said.
Abhishek Mehrotra, another Congress supporter, claimed that JP Agarwal will emerge victorious after the counting concludes and the record of the BJP claiming all seats in the Capital will break.
“People are facing a water crisis in the locality, no sanitation work has been done on a regular basis. The BJP is only concerned about article 370 and other issues. They just seek votes on the work done by PM Modi. However, the Congress party will solve all the problems of the residents,” Mehrotra added.
People residing in the Chandni Chowk constituency suffer from traffic congestion, parking problems and crumbling infrastructure on a regular basis while the traders there have to deal with fake GST collecting officials, cases of theft among other problems.
Pollution and crime are rarely discussed in this constituency dominated by traders and Muslims. Ironically, despite being one of Delhi’s 13 pollution hotspots, parties rarely address it.
