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Journalism of Courage
“The party will decide after February 8… If they want to make me CM, I will heed their demands.” Speaking to The Indian Express on the campaign trail in January, BJP’s Parvesh Sahib Singh Verma had this to say about his prospects.
Having dethroned AAP supremo and three-time Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal from the New Delhi seat today, Verma would fancy his chances for the top post.
New Delhi is incidentally the same seat from where Kejriwal defeated former CM Sheila Dikshit in 2013, ending her 15-year rule. The seat, which also saw Sheila’s son Sandeep Dikshit in the fray from the Congress (he finished a distant third), has typically been a barometer of the rising and falling popularity of the ruling government.
In 2015, Kejriwal won the seat with 64.14% of the votes, and in 2020, he grabbed 61.1% of the votes.
The New Delhi contest was intense, with AAP making allegations of voter list tampering, distribution of freebies by the BJP during the imposition of the Model Code of Conduct, and voter suppression.
Verma, 47, had made several promises – making Yamuna a riverfront similar to the one at Sabarmati, giving houses to slum dwellers and providing them infrastructure, 50,000 government jobs, flyovers, and a pollution-free national capital.
Through the campaign, his supporters pitched him as a CM candidate. “Delhi ka CM kaisa ho, Parvesh Verma jaisa ho” is a chant that reverberated across his campaign trail.
The two-time West Delhi MP and one-time Mehrauli MLA, who has been with the BJP for close to three decades, kickstarted his campaign in mid-January. Weeks before that, he started visiting various jhuggi jhopri clusters across New Delhi to ascertain the needs of the residents.
“Many people in JJ clusters don’t have free water and electricity… I would say this openly. Whoever is getting clean water and zero electricity bills, please vote for Kejriwal, and whoever isn’t, please vote for BJP,” he said on multiple occasions.
Of the three lakh JJ households, close to a fifth are in the New Delhi Parliamentary constituency, which includes the New Delhi Vidhan Sabha seat along with nine others.
In December, the AAP had accused Verma of giving Rs 1,100 to women to “buy their vote”. In response, Verma had said that he was only helping them through his father’s NGO.
Verma’s campaign was also built around the Chief Minister’s official residence at 6, Flag Staff Road, Civil Lines – termed by the Opposition as “Sheesh Mahal”. A model of the “sheesh mahal” kept outside Verma’s house over the past weeks attracted many visitors. “Kya Kejriwal ka ghar sahi me aisa hai (Do you think Kejriwal’s house is really like this).” “Yes! I have seen it on the news,” went a conversation between two women passing by his house.
“Kejriwal has done nothing for Delhi in the last 11 years… While you all were dying of Covid, Kejriwal was busy building a sheesh mahal for himself,” Verma had told his supporters.
