BJP’s Chandni Chowk candidate Praveen Khandelwal does not have as elaborate a political resume as his opponent, Congress heavyweight J.P. Agarwal. Still, the BJP picked him over the sitting Lok Sabha member and former Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan as part of a major rejig in which the party dropped six of its seven city MPs.
This is not Mr. Khandelwal’s first tryst with Chandni Chowk though. In 2008, he had unsuccessfully contested the poll from the Assembly constituency, when the Congress ruled the Centre as well as Delhi.
But this time, things are different.
The BJP, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has been winning all seven seats and getting more than 50% of the votes polled in the Lok Sabha election since 2014 in Delhi. The Congress is struggling to make a comeback after being decimated in the last two general elections.
Local connect
The 64-year-old BJP candidate is banking on his local connect and work as a leader of traders for the past 25 years. He had also served as the Delhi BJP’s treasurer in the past.
Born and brought up in the lanes of Sita Ram Bazar, he says he knows the area like the back of his hand.
‘Home turf’
Talking to The Hindu at Chandni Chowk’s National Club, the BJP nominee describes the area as his “home turf”. He adds, “Chandni Chowk is more than a constituency for me.”
Mr. Khandelwal’s plans for the constituency range from infrastructural development to beautification drives. If elected, one of his priorities would be to beautify the lake in the historic Roshanara Bagh by 2027.
However, the most important thing for him is to solve the issues of local people.
“I have always been spirited and will make more efforts now. Until now, my work primarily involved dealingwith traders’ issues. Now, I will look into the issues of other residents too,” says Mr. Khandelwal, a law graduate from Delhi University.
The BJP leader says his focus would also be on the turnaround of local businesses to generate employment opportunities.
“Some of the world’s most renowned chaat-pakore caterers are from this constituency. I am in touch with them and have plans to popularise their delicacies,” he says.
“Over the years, I have seen how business is born and dies. During the days of the National Emergency, businesses had collapsed. What matters is perception,” says Mr. Khandelwal, who is currently the national secretary general of the Confederation of All India Traders.
ABVP background
However, Mr. Khandelwal says he understands that the role of a Lok Sabha member will be new to him despite coming from a family that has had links with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh for decades now.
His father and uncle too were local BJP leaders and he was associated with the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student wing of the RSS, in his college days.
“For any patriot of this country, the BJP is the natural choice,”says Mr. Khandelwal, a hardware trader for 25 years now.
‘No distinction’
Seeking to address the apprehensions of the Muslim community in the constituency, the leader assures that he will not discriminate on the basis of religion. “Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in all his schemes, has made no such distinction and 140 crore people in the country have benefited from these schemes. If the Prime Minister has made no distinction, why should I?” he says.
