It's PM Modi vs Rahul Gandhi in Delhi; poll battle not among local leaders

Elections in the National Capital might turn out to be interesting this time as the voters want to bring Narendra Modi-lead government back to power even though MPs in their constituencies have left them disappointed.

Surprisingly the battle is not among the candidates in the constituency, but people term it as a Prime Minister Modi vs Rahul Gandhi battle in which they want PM Modi to be victorious.

Migrant voters matter

The National Capital holds seven Lok Sabha seats in its kitty, and the people allege that their voices are unheard and promises made by their current leaders are yet to be fulfilled. The main issues in the last five years for the business class have been the sealing drive in the city and GST, whereas for the middle and the poor class has been the unemployment, demonetisation and lack of development work in their area.

Delhi is also home to the maximum number of the migrant population including the labourers, students coming from across the globe. Even though people have been majorly disappointed with their MPs owing to lack of visibility to poor facilities provided to them their desire to bring back PM Narendra Modi is at its peak. Last elections around 65 per cent people voted in the National Capital.

Ground reality

The Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana scheme, under which MPs adopted villages, failed to do any good to the villages in Delhi's periphery.

These rural areas that were promised civic and infra development continue to battle water, power, roads and school woes. DNA carried out a ground report and visited various villages which were adopted by various MPs.

Ramesh Kumar, a resident of Bhati village which was adopted by Ramesh Bidhuri said, "Ever since the BJP came to power we all had placed hope on the party to improve the living conditions of the area. However, forget about providing employment opportunities, our village does not even have any basic healthcare facilities. Politicians come to our area once in five years and then vanish."

When DNA visited the Bhati village it came to fore that the entire village does not have proper school up to class twelve. Villagers, however, are all in praise for their Brahm Singh Tanwar who is also a BJP leader and a former Delhi MLA.

Bijendri, a resident of Bhati village who has a handicapped son and has to take care of two of her grandchildren, said "Mostly girls in the villages sit at home post class five as the school in the village is up to that class. The MP had come to the school once and promised that it would be up to class twelve, but nothing has happened till now," she said.

Out of various villages adopted by the MPs, the one in New Delhi, Pilanji adopted by Meenakshi Lekhi has seen a little more amount of development than the others, probably owing to the location of the village.

Choudhary Raj Pal, the Pradhan of the village stated that Lekhi does come to the village and some work has happened however issues like a wedding hall, health vans, foot-over-bridges, community toilets, police booth need to be taken care of as well. "There are many schools in the area but we do not have access to them. The aim was to make it an urban village but that is yet to be achieved. Schools which have occupied the land of the village do not even give admission to lids from the village," said Choudhary.

Chilla village adopted by East Delhi MP Maheish Girri has overflowing drains with garbage kept outside the drain, poor sewer lines and kids as young as 5 or 7 chewing tobacco and roaming in the lanes. When asked if they go to school some said they did while some have got their names registered but have never gone.

Kadipur village in Delhi adopted by MP Manoj Tiwari has seen development in the face of it with free wifi but lacks constant water supply, garbage disposal and medical facilities. For youngsters, the wifi has been a boon. Better medical facilities and cleanliness is what the area awaits.

Similarly, Dheerpur village which was adopted by Dr Harsh Vardhan in Chandni Chowk constituency has narrow lanes, wires hanging and vehicles parked on the sides, and it would take hours for services to reach them in case of any calamity.

Unresolved civic issues

In some villages in the National Capital people have either seen their MPs for laying foundation stones or during functions or festivals.

Civics issues continue to plague most of the seven villages which the DNA visited.