Civic bypolls: Last-ditch efforts to decide lucky 13

New Delhi: The election office of BJP’s Mahender Nagpal in Ashok Vihar is abuzz with volunteers armed with telephone directories. On the

last

day of

campaigning

on Friday for the municipality by-polls, Nagpal’s team is yet to convince many like Sonia Khari that they should vote for BJP. Nagpal may be a three-time councillor and one-time MLA from Wazirpur, but the campaigning has been tough. “There are around 40,000 voters and 500 party workers have been campaigning for a month,” he said. Senior party leaders like union minister for science and technology Dr Harsh Vardhan canvassed voted for him. The frenetic pace at Nagpal’s poll office was replicated across 13 wards on Friday, the last

day

of campaigning before elections to fill the vacated seats on Sunday. The candidates upped their ante with door-to-door surveys, a few rounds of public meetings and party workers calling up voters individually to remind them of the candidate’s name and the symbol. Sonia Khari, 27, a resident of Wazirpur, said that neither BJP nor the Aam Aadmi Party, participating in

civic

body polls for the first time, would get her family’s vote. “It is time to give Congress another chance,” she said. That is happy news for Mahesh Khari, the Congress candidate from Wazirpur. When TOI visited Wazirpur, Shalimar Bagh, Khichripur and Jhilmil wards on Friday, it found that most voters appeared to know who they were going to vote for. While BJP is hoping to ride on the Centre’s achievements, AAP is hoping to ride the anti-incumbency sentiment against the decade-old BJP rule in the three municipal corporations. Congress might not offer too much competition, but it has made an earnest effort, including bringing out ward-wise newsletters highlighting the civic issues there. Shalimar Bagh North, which includes Shalamar and Sahipur villages and Haiderpur and Indirapuram clusters, “is in bad shape and I propose to change that,” said Congress candidate Bhagmal Sharma. In Jhilmil ward, voters are positive about voting for BJP. Gopal Singh, a resident there, said, “BJP candidate Jitender Singh Shunty has done a lot of work for this ward, and even when we had no councillor he helped us in some or the other way.” On Friday, in a last ditch effort, senior party leaders including MLA OP Sharma carried out a big roadshow there for Shunty. The AAP and Congress candidates countered with door-to-door campaigns and were confident about winning. “The public is with us, they elected AAP to power in the assembly elections and we will secure all 13 ward in these municipal elections,” said Ghanshyam Gaur, AAP candidate from Jhilmil. In Khichripur, however, residents are in a dilemma over the potential councillor. BJP candidate Vinod Kumar Binny has won in the past while the other two parties have fielded first timers. “In the past so many years, nothing much has changed in this ward,” said Gyanendran Singh dolefully. “However,” he added, “we are happy that the new candidates selected do belong to our ward.”