‘South Delhi resident’ vs ‘local’ in Krishna Nagar

It’s a choice between “an outsider and a local” for Krishna Nagar voters this time.

The East Delhi Assembly seat has been represented by Bharatiya Janata Party’s Harsh Vardhan for 20 years. Dr. Vardhan, who has lived in the area for decades, won with a whopping margin of 43,150 votes during the 2013 Assembly elections. The seat was expected to be a safe one for the party’s high-profile chief ministerial candidate this time, Kiran Bedi.

Before filing her nomination, Ms. Bedi said Krishna Nagar was still Dr. Vardhan’s “garden” and that she “would tend to it”. The former IPS officer and anti-corruption activist lives in South Delhi’s Uday Park, a fact her rivals are banking on to break the BJP’s luck.

Aam Aadmi Party candidate S.K. Bagga, however, claims that Ms. Bedi’s “outsider tag” has worked in his favour. “The day her name was announced, my support increased. How will the BJP solve the area’s problems when their candidate does not even know them?” said Mr. Bagga, a lawyer who has lived all his life in Krishna Nagar.

However, the constituency’s demographic composition of middle-class voters of the trader community may work in favour of the BJP, considered to be popular among them. The Congress has fielded Bansi Lal, a councillor in the East Delhi Municipal Corporation, against Ms. Bedi and Mr. Bagga.

In 2013, Congress candidate Vinod Kumar Monga had come in second to Dr. Vardhan, while AAP’s Ishrat Ali Ansari placed a distant third.