Family members pitch in for candidates

Christina Fernandes (first from right), wife of Aam Aadmi Party candidate Ashish Khetan in a door to door campaign in Delhi on Wednesday. Photo: Monica Tiwari.

It is not only the party candidates who are toiling hard and going through the grind of the rigorous election campaign in the Capital. Most of the immediate family members of Lok Sabha candidates, cutting across party lines, are involved in various capacities with the election campaigning.

While some are hitting the road from dawn to dusk, others are involved in coordinating corner meetings and the social media profiles of the candidates.

“Apart from me, my mother-in-law and sisters-in-law are also campaigning in different Assembly constituencies everyday. All of us are attending 25-30 corner meetings in a day. Since the constituency is large and we want to reach out to the maximum number of voters, we started campaigning in the second week of March. My husband is looking after the social media and other PR campaign,” said Ekta Agarwal, daughter-in-law of Congress candidate from North East constituency, J.P. Agarwal.

Campaigning in the Mustafabad Assembly constituency, Ms. Agarwal said she was there for her father-in-law even in 2009 elections and “also knows the larger issues of people in the constituency. That is the reason why I do not have problem in handling the queries of the people.”

Christina, wife of Aam Aadmi Party candidate Ashish Khetan, is also on the campaign trail on behalf of her husband and is visiting areas which Mr. Khetan has not been able to cover extensively.

“There are no shortcuts, you have to be on the road and hit the trail. I have been covering areas which Ashish couldn’t cover extensively. I am trying to reach out to the women and trying to connect on a personal basis as people are not very aware about Ashish as he is a new entrant in politics,” said Christina, a radio jockey by profession.

“I have also been working on different aspects of campaigning like coordinating it. We have just completed composing the jingle which will be used for campaigning,” she added.

Not only relatives of the candidates, but even family members of former political heavyweights have extended support to the kin of the candidates in the fray. Vimal Khurana, son of former Chief Minister Madan Lal Khurana, is campaigning along with Siddharta Verma, younger brother of BJP candidate from West Delhi Pravesh Singh Verma.