Mehrauli: On local development, parties try to consolidate traditional Jat votes

NEW DELHI: The Mehrauli Vidhan Sabha constituency does not only consist some of the oldest parts of Delhi but also the newest parts of Delhi. If on one hand, it has Mehrauli village which is older than Shahjahanabad then on another hand, there is Vasant Kunj that came up in the early '80s and Saket which built around 50 years ago. The total voters of Mehrauli is 1.81 lakh in which the male voters are 1.03 lakh and female voters at 78,062.

At 40 per cent Jats form the dominant voter base in the assembly constituency. They have a strong presence in areas of Kishangarh, Lado Sarai, Katwaria Sarai, Ber Sarai, and Masoodpur. Interestingly there are different clans of Jats like Sehrawat, Sejwal, Chaudhury that are concentrated in these villages. On the factors of local development, the major challenge for the political parties is to consolidate the traditional Jat votes. Other voters who hold major significance in the Vidhan Sabha area include Banias (12 per cent) and Muslims (10 per cent). There is also a small presence of Gujjar and Ahir voters. Both BJP and Congress have fielded the local Jat leaders in forms of Kusum Khatri from Kishangarh and Mohinder Chaudhury from the Mehrauli ward-6.

Khatri is the ex- councilor in MCD in ward -172, Kishangarh. Mohinder Chaudhury has fought as a councilor on two occasions. His recent loss as an independent councilor was by an extremely thin margin of 261 votes. Both the candidates are confident of securing victory and displacing Naresh Yadav who secured a win by gaining a voting percentage of 51 per cent.

The rise of Naresh is no less spectacular. An advocate by profession, Yadav who resides in Vasant Kunj began his political stint from being an RWA president. Situated geographically in the hilly forested area, a major problem for the residents in Mehrauli constituency for long has been water supply. There are also complaints of poor drainage systems, bad roads, illegal colonies and poor cleanliness levels.

Owing to congested bylanes in the Mehrauli area, high tension electric wires can also be seen hanging around the main market, a situation which according to the shopkeepers can lead to a massive fire tragedy. The same problem of congestion has also resulted in the public authorities not able to install transformers that can bear more load.

According to the AAP

leader, the main work done by him in the five years has been to improve the water supply. The 48-year-old leader asserts that the work of underground water reserves (UGR) that has been

lying pending for so many years was undertaken by his government. Moreover, the pipelines that had not been replaced for thirty to forty years were done under his stint. Yadav highlights that the situation of laying the pipelines has resulted in the poor condition of roads in some areas, a situation that can definitely be improved.

The claims by the AAP

leader has been rejected outrightly by the BJP and Congress the leader who assert that not only has the government has not been able to solve the year-long problems faced by the residents of Mehrauli. Taking cognisance of a large number of slum clusters that have come up around Mehrauli, the BJP is aggressively pushing its plank of regularising the unauthorised colonies that will benefit 40 lakh residents.

Despite expressing strong views on the issues occurring nationally, voters in this area have highlighted that this time they will vote on local issues.