Walled City craves CM’s attention

OLD-TIMERS IN WALLED CITY

NEW DELHI: Shoaib Iqbal, the fivetime MLA from Matia Mahal, wonders if it was an aandhitoofan or a kaali raat that dislodged him from power. He finds no other reason to explain how his bastion was breached by a debutant.

Iqbal was defeated by 38-yearold Asim Ahmed Khan, now a minister in Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s cabinet, by over 26,000 votes.

His ardent fans on the streets of the Walled City and his fabled reputation of a local Robin Hood couldn’t do much. Shocked eyes and dropping jaws were not visible in Matia Mahal alone. The entire Old Delhi came out of the grip of old-timers who were both appreciated and criticised for treating the area like their backyard. Residents of the Mughalera KHAN HUSSAIN IMRAN

settlement now hope their long-standing issues will be taken care of by the new government.

Three of the four constituencies here were ruled by the Congress since 1998 before the AAP made a foray winning Sadar ALKA LAMBA

Bazar in 2013. Fifty-six-year-old Haroon Yusuf, one of the only eight MLAs who could retain their seats in the 2013 elections, had been in power in Ballimaran since the Delhi Assembly was first constituted in 1993.

Parlad Singh Sawhney, a Congress old-hand, too had been an MLA from Chandni Chowk from 1998 to 2013. “Bada afsos hua. Haroon toh sunte nahi the kisi ki. Par Shoaib toh badiya the (It was really unfortunate. Haroon Yusuf never heard us but Shoaib Iqbal was a nice man),” said 32-year-old paper trader, Mohammad Yahya, a resident of Turkman Gate.

“I was astonished at the results too. I have no idea what happened.People have been coming to me, some even crying, to express their disbelief,” said 55-year-old Iqbal, who had contested the elections on a Congress ticket this year.

Many, including Iqbal, feel it was the promise of paani maaf, bijli half (free water, power at half rates) that helped AAP make inroads into the Walled City and swing the Congress votes in their favour.