‘It’s time for a younger candidate’: BJP’s Kapil Mishra files nomination from Karawal Nagar
Considered a BJP bastion, the seat has seen only one non-BJP win in the recent history, when Mishra won from the constituency in 2015 on a AAP ticket. He, however, left the AAP in 2019 to join the BJP.
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Kapil Mishra on his way to file nomination on Thursday. (Amit Mehra)Kapil Mishra, the BJP candidate from Karawal Nagar constituency, arrived to a deafening roar from party workers gathered in front of the sub-divisional magistrate office in Nand Nagri on Thursday to file nomination for Delhi polls.
E-rickshaws carrying posters bearing Mishra’s photograph alongside the Prime Minister’s, filled the road opposite the nomination centre. Surrounded by supporters, talks of any resentment within the party over his selection as the Karawal Nagar candidate over incumbent Manoj Kumar Bhist seemed to have dialed down. “It was time to have a younger candidate from here. He (Mishra) was very popular when he was the MLA before Bhist sahab and has a good chance to win,” said Rakesh Kumar, a BJP Mandal member.
Considered a BJP bastion, the seat has seen only one non-BJP win in the recent history, when Mishra won from the constituency in 2015 on a AAP ticket. He, however, left the AAP in 2019 to join the BJP.
The party has fielded Bhist from Mustafabad. “Bhist will have a better chance from Mustafabad. Before 2008, when it was part of Karawal Nagar, Bhist used to get the majority votes from the area. But now, people want to see Kapil Mishra in Karawal Nagar. If he (Bhist) fought from this seat, he could have lost,” said Raman Kumar Singh, a paan shopowner at Karawal Chowk. Running his shop for the last 25 years, Raman migrated from Bihar to Karawal Nagar, much like a significant chunk of the population in the constituency.
“Many voters here are either from UP, Bihar or Uttrakhand. They prefer Kapil Mishra over Bhist. That’s why he won in 2015,” says Tika Singh, (60), a local resident. Mishra faces AAP’s Manoj Tyagi and Congress’s P K Mishra from the seat.
Mishra, however, is hedging his bets on allegations of corruption against the AAP government.
“We will win with a huge margin and we will win for (PM Narendra) Modiji. I was the first one to raise the issue of failure of (AAP chief Arvind) Kejriwal’s governance and corruption. I fought against (former Congress CM) Sheila Dixit and will
fight against another corrupt CM,” he said.
“The Sheesh Mahal he has built is a big issue here. His credibility is finished,” he added.
On alleged rift between him and Bhist, Mishra said, “He is my elder brother. He has been here for the last 25 years, and it’s natural to feel the way he did…. I am going to campaign for him and he will do the same for me. It was the party’s decision as we wanted to win both the seats.”
After winning the 2015 polls, Mishra was appointed as Minister for Water and Tourism in the AAP government. He was sacked in 2017 and was subsequently suspended from AAP after he alleged that then health minister Satyendar Jain had helped Kejriwal settle land deals worth Rs 50 crore for his brother-in-law. In 2019, he joined the BJP.
On February 23, 2020, in a controversial speech, Mishra threatened to remove those protesting against the Citizenship Amendment Act in Jaffrabad. The next day, riots had broken out in Northeast Delhi.
According to party insiders, the BJP has been kept slowly integrating Mishra into the party, owing to his “outsider”
image among the state unit’s faithful. But in August 2023, the process was complete after he was appointed as Delhi BJP vice president.
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