Newly-appointed Delhi Congress president Devender Yadav on Thursday addressed party workers in the North West Delhi and North East Delhi Lok Sabha constituencies, and asked them to motivate people to work for the party candidates who are contesting the general elections in Delhi in partnership with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).
While speaking to party workers, Mr. Yadav asked them to pledge their support to the two candidates, and directed them to go door-to-door to spread awareness about the party’s determination to uplift the condition of the marginalised sections of society through the five ‘Nyay’ guarantees in the Congress manifesto. He also told them to hold padyatras and meetings in their respective areas to garner support for Mr. Raj and Mr. Kumar.
“All of the promises and assurances made by the [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi government were deceptions to fool the people. They have carried out no development work or anything for the welfare of the people in the past 10 years,” Mr. Yadav said.
He also entrusted responsibilities to the presidents of the party’s student wing, National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), and the Youth Congress to manage booth-level publicity and motivate the youth to vote for Congress and INDIA bloc candidates.
“There is a large number of young voters in Delhi, and most of them are unemployed. The NSUI and Youth Congress teams will impress upon them the necessity to vote for the INDIA bloc for a brighter future,” said Delhi Congress spokesperson Anil Bhardwaj, adding that the BJP government would only create “lakhs of more unemployed youth to destroy their future”.
Besides North West Delhi and North East Delhi, the Congress is also contesting from the Chandni Chowk seat. The rest of the seats — East Delhi, West Delhi, South Delhi and New Delhi — will be contested by the AAP as part of the two parties’ seat-sharing deal under the Opposition’s INDIA bloc.
Both North West Delhi and North East Delhi had earlier seen protests within the party against the leadership’s decision to give tickets to “outsider” candidates Udit Raj and Kanhaiya Kumar, respectively.
Mr. Raj, earlier an MP (2014-2019) from North West Delhi on a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket, had joined the Congress in 2019. Mr. Kumar was earlier a member of the Communist Party of India, and joined the Congress in 2021.
Former Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely, who joined the BJP after quitting his post on April 28, had said in his resignation letter that the two candidates were “total strangers to the Delhi Congress and the party’s policies”.
