Business Standard
Delhi
The Congress has managed to circumvent the electoral code of conduct (that bars launching of any new schemes after the EC announces polls) by a whisker. Just last week the government here distributed provisional certificates to residents of many of the 1,400 unauthorised colonies, promising them that these would soon be regularised.
It was a function presided over by Congress President Sonia Gandhi, besides Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and possible chief minister-in-waiting Ajay Maken, and was unofficially the launch of the party’s election campaign.
About 4 million Delhiites will benefit from the move if it wins the apex court’s approval. The government is already laying sewers and drains in 700 of these colonies on a war footing. And these 4 million people are what the Congress is banking on to help it romp home for the third consecutive time. The total budget allocation for the regularisation drive is Rs 3,000 crore.
As many as 400,000 slum dwellers will move into flats which the Congress government has promised.
Supremely confident, Delhi party president J P Agarwal said: “We have worked hard and so we are cent per cent confident of our victory.” Agarwal is perhaps the only party president in the last one decade who has no axe to grind with the CM. Dikshit has had a running battle with dissident party leaders.
BJP chief ministerial candidate V K Malhotra, on the other hand, is still cobbling together support from party cadres. About 60 corporators of the BJP led by party organising secretary Jagdish Mamgain recently submitted a memorandum to party president L K Advani and other leaders, demanding that councillors be considered as candidates for contesting the Assembly elections. Malhotra oppose their demand.
The BSP factor does not bother either the BJP or the Congress. Both say Mayawati’s charm has waned after the initial months of her government in Uttar Pradesh.
