New Delhi: As Delhi goes to polls on February 8, one of the keenly watched constituencies will be Karawal Nagar, the Assembly constituency in northeast Delhi, which was Aam Adami Party (AAP) rebel turned Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Kapil Mishra’s bastion.
The constituency has 2,81,331 voters, out of which 1,57,726 are male and 1,23,593 female voters. The constituency has a gender ratio of 784.
Shahid Bhagat Singh Colony, Police Training School, Dayalpur and Sonia Vihar are the nearby areas of this closely fought Assembly constituency.
In 2013, Karawal Nagar witnessed a closely fought battle between the BJP and AAP, where BJP’s Mohan Singh Bisht defeated the newbie political outfit by around 3,000 votes. When Delhi went for a fresh election in 2015, after political uncertainty, Kapil Mishra, then an emerging AAP leader defeated Bisht hands down.
Ever since much water has flown. Not only the once anti-Modi and a minister in Arvind Kejriwal’s cabinet, Mishra rebelled against his own party, but also campaigned for the BJP.
He says he has been “influenced” by “Modi’s works”.
Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel disqualified Mishra under the anti-defection law based on a petition by another AAP leader, Saurabh Bharadwaj.
He finally joined the BJP last year and is expected to be fielded from the same constituency — Karawal Nagar — by the BJP in this election.
— IANS