Civic apathy adds to woes in riot-hit areas

NEW DELHI: Neighbourhoods in north-east Delhi are largely unau- thorised colonies, and in the past, voters by and large used to vote for issues like sanitation and develop- ment. However, riots in February 2020 led to the death of 53 people in the area, and residents said the violence from those events has affected how they voted in Sunday’s municipal corporation elec- tions.

The civic body elections are the first polls held in Delhi since the riots in 2020, and residents from the violence hotspots of Chand Bagh, Gokalpuri, Shiv Vihar, Jafrabad and nearby areas said the scars from the disturbance more than two years ago are still fresh.

Mohammad Naziruddin, 55, stepped out of a polling booth at the Karawal Nagar main road near Chand Bagh with a melancholic look on his face. “The place where you are standing right now was a battlefield in February 2020 as rioters went on a rampage,” he said.

In Shiv Vihar, a resident, on condition of anonymity, said, “People will remember the riots for decades. It is not something we can easily forget.”

These areas witnessed brisk polling, with several polling booths reporting long queues of voters. A police officer deployed at a polling booth in Dayalpur said: “The crowd was low when the polling began at 8am, but as the day progressed people came out in larger number.”

Many of the violence hotspots are typically neglected by the authorities, and communal fault lines in these areas run deep.

However, residents said since their futures are linked to the place, and because they cannot change their neighbours, they have voted for peace and brotherhood. “We have a family to run and a life to live. The incident is a thing of the past, and we are attempting to move on,” said Istkar Salmani, whose saloon was torched during the riots.

In nearby colonies of east Delhi, which were close to the riots but remained immune from the violence, many residents said they were not satisfied with sanitation services. “Traffic congestion, waterlogging during rains and poor maintenance of parks are some of the things we want to be addressed,” said Karuna Jha, a resident of Vivek Vihar.

In Shakarpur, Pradeep Gupta said locals turned out in large numbers to vote. “The trifurcation of the MCD in 2012 led to east Delhi getting neglected, but now that the MCD has been unified, we hope this part of the Capital will get better attention,” he said.