Udit Raj (left), Congress’s candidate for North West Delhi Lok Sabha seat.
| Photo Credit: ANI
A press conference to introduce the Congress’s three Delhi Lok Sabha candidates on Monday was marred by protests after a section of party workers raised slogans against BJP turncoat and the party’s North West Delhi candidate Udit Raj.
Mr. Raj, who won the seat on a BJP ticket in the 2014 general election and switched to the Congress after being denied the ticket in the 2019 Lok Sabha poll, was termed “an outsider” by the protesters.
At its press conference, held at the party’s Delhi unit headquarters on Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg, the Congress introduced its candidates — J.P. Agarwal from Chandni Chowk and Kanhaiya Kumar from North East Delhi, apart from Mr. Raj.
The Congress is fighting the Lok Sabha election in Delhi in alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party, which is contesting four seats.
A disgruntled Congress worker said, “There are several competent leaders in the party who could have been given the ticket. Why did the party choose a former BJP MP?”
Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely said the protests showed that the party “is on the rise in Delhi as there is a lot of demand for Congress tickets”.
Although no slogans were raised against Mr. Kumar, a section of the party workers also termed him an “outsider” as he had contested the 2019 election (unsuccessfully) on a CPI ticket from Begusarai in Bihar before joining the Congress in 2021.
Addressing the press conference, Mr. Raj said several works that he started during his tenure as the North West Delhi MP were stopped by the BJP in the past five years and that his first priority would be to resume those projects.
“I adopted four model villages for special development and changed the face of Narela,” the former BJP MP said.