For people gathered at Hans Raj Hans’s public meetings in North-West Delhi, where he has been nominated as the BJP candidate for the Lok Sabha seat, musical renditions are a given. Though the sufi singer mostly stuck to the party’s campaign song “ Dil Modi Modi ”, pop stars Daler Mehndi and Sapna Choudhary, who flanked him on a campaign trail that stretched out through the day on Sunday, ensured pop numbers also featured.
As Ms. Choudhary started to recite a couple of verses from her popular songs, the crowd in Swaroop Nagar, which abuts a central drain, rose up in cheer. People jostling for space in the narrow lane, held up their phones for a chance to capture the singer on their screens. The local BJP leader there announced: “Our dream of seeing Sapna was made possible because of Mr. Hans, because of [Narendra] Modi.” The singer assured the crowd that a proper concert would be organised in the area if they voted for Mr. Hans. In her endorsement of the BJP nominee, she asked the crowd to vote for him because he was “a respectable and good person”.
Mr. Hans told the crowd that the Prime Minister had sent him. He said Mr. Modi told him to end his ‘
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In a reference to ousted BJP leader Udit Raj, the incumbent MP from North-West Delhi, who did not get a ticket from the party and subsequently joined Congress, the local BJP leader urged the crowd to “forget who came and went and to make Hans Raj win to bring Mr. Modi back”.
Anil Tiwari, who was part of the crowd in Buddh Vihar, said Mr. Hans did not talk about issues such as unemployment or the economy, but said he would vote for the BJP as he wanted Mr. Modi to come back to power.
Deler Mehndi modified a couple of verses from one of his classics and sang: “
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Mr Hans started attending gatherings from 8.30 a.m in small lanes of Buddh Vihar and addressed hundreds of people till later in the evening at Nilothi Nihal Vihar near Mr. Mehndi’s farmhouse. He was scheduled to end his trail at Sukhi Nahar.