Kanhaiya Kumar with an image of the Preamble on Monday.
| Photo Credit: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR
Congress candidate Kanhaiya Kumar filed his papers from the North East Delhi Lok Sabha constituency on Monday, the last day of the nomination process.
According to officials, 290 candidates filed papers for the May 25 Lok Sabha poll in the Capital, the most from Chandni Chowk seat (52). The scrutiny of nominations will be done on May 7.
Congress’s Chandni Chowk candidate J.P. Agarwal, 79, is the oldest among those fielded by Delhi’s major political parties, while 35-year-old Kuldeep Kumar, AAP’s East Delhi candidate, is the youngest.
Pitted against BJP’s two-time MP Manoj Tiwari, Mr. Kanhaiya Kumar was the last among the prominent faces in the city to file their papers. He was accompanied by Delhi Congress’s interim chief Devender Yadav and senior Aam Aadmi Party leader Gopal Rai to the District Magistrate’s office in Nand Nagri.
Before filing his papers, Mr. Kanhaiya Kumar took out a roadshow from his election office in Maujpur to the DM’s office, taking over an hour and a half to cover about two kilometres.
“We want employment for the youth of north-east Delhi. We want relief from GST imposed on shopkeepers. We want to give a minimum wage of ₹400 for labourers. We also want to pay women a stipend of ₹1 lakh per year,” he said.
Main contest
In Delhi, the challenge before the BJP is to retain all seven seats it won in the 2019 election. The Congress and AAP are fighting together as part of a 3-4 seat-sharing arrangement, hoping to win the election on the combined strength of their voter base and anti-incumbency against the BJP, which had got over 50% of the votes polled in the last general election.