Having dethroned Arvind Kejriwal, giant killer Parvesh Verma could fancy his chances for Delhi’s top job

New Delhi is incidentally the aforesaid spot from wherever Kejriwal defeated erstwhile CM Sheila Dikshit successful 2013, ending her 15-year rule. The seat, which besides saw Sheila’s lad Sandeep Dikshit successful 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 spot with 64.14% of the votes, and successful 2020, helium grabbed 61.1% of the votes.

The New Delhi contention was intense, with AAP making allegations of elector database tampering, organisation of freebies by the BJP during the imposition of the Model Code of Conduct, and elector suppression.

Verma, 47, had made respective promises – making Yamuna a riverfront akin to the 1 astatine Sabarmati, giving houses to slum dwellers and providing them infrastructure, 50,000 authorities jobs, flyovers, and a pollution-free nationalist capital.

Through the campaign, his supporters pitched him arsenic a CM candidate. “Delhi ka CM kaisa ho, Parvesh Verma jaisa ho” is simply a chant that reverberated crossed his run trail.

The two-time West Delhi MP and one-time Mehrauli MLA, who has been with the BJP for adjacent to 3 decades, kickstarted his run successful mid-January. Weeks earlier that, helium started visiting assorted jhuggi jhopri clusters crossed New Delhi to ascertain the needs of the residents.

“Many radical successful JJ clusters don’t person escaped h2o and electricity… I would accidental this openly. Whoever is getting cleanable h2o and zero energy bills, delight ballot for Kejriwal, and whoever isn’t, delight ballot for BJP,” helium said connected aggregate occasions.

Of the 3 lakh JJ households, adjacent to a 5th are successful the New Delhi Parliamentary constituency, which includes the New Delhi Vidhan Sabha spot on with 9 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 helium was lone helping them done his father’s NGO.

Verma’s run was besides built astir the Chief Minister’s authoritative residence astatine 6, Flag Staff Road, Civil Lines – termed by the Opposition arsenic “Sheesh Mahal”. A exemplary of the “sheesh mahal” kept extracurricular Verma’s location implicit the past weeks attracted galore visitors. “Kya Kejriwal ka ghar sahi maine aisa hai (Do you deliberation Kejriwal’s location is truly similar this).” “Yes! I person seen it connected the news,” went a speech betwixt 2 women passing by his house.

“Kejriwal has done thing for Delhi successful the past 11 years… While you each were dying of Covid, Kejriwal was engaged gathering a sheesh mahal for himself,” Verma had told his supporters.