New Delhi: Women candidates in fray for April’s civic elections have pulled up their socks after the Delhi Election Commission announced the dates for filing nominations.
Even though the BJP and the Congress, the erstwhile arch rivals in Delhi civic polls, are yet to announce their candidates, the women candidates of the debutante Aam Aadmi Party and Yogendra Yadav-led Swaraj India said they are ready to put up a good fight. The national capital will be going to polls on April 22, the state election commission said on Tuesday.
Babita Gautam, who will be contesting the polls on the AAP ticket from ward 56 S (Sidharth Nagar) in South Delhi, said she has already began her campaign. “I have started going among the people. Sewer lines in the area need reparing, every year rains deluge the area,” she said.
Ms Gautam said the upcoming polls will be a referendum on the chief minister Arvind Kejriwal’s performance in the last years.
Nisha Sharma, another AAP candidate from the ward 30 E (Jhilmil) in east Delhi, claimed that the BJP’s ploy to not field sitting councillors will work to the party’s advantage. “AAP has taught politics to the BJP in Delhi,” she said.
Ms Sharma, 28, is contesting her first-ever elections after her stint as a district-level AAP worker. “I am planning to quit my job. I work in the legal department of a private bank,” she said, adding that she is the youngest candidate in fray for her party.
She said her key priority is to make Jhilmil safer for women. For its first full-fledged civic polls, the AAP has so far announced 248 candidates for 272 wards in North, South and East Municipal Corporation.
Former AAP leader Yogendra Yadav-led Swaraj India has fielded a few women candidates from unreserved seats. One of them is 70-year-old Ruma Sikka. Ms Sikka, who is a successful entrepreneur and president of her local resident welfare association, said: “I am a known face in the area. I have paid no money to get the ticket, so I have no motive to make money. I have enough.”
Because of her track record as a social activist she was the one of the main contendenders for the position of the chairperson of Delhi Commission for Women, the Swaraj India candidate said.
“I recently distributed calendars with my name and face on it. I had also put up posters for Holi,” she said when asked about her prepardness for the elections. “I’m 70, but I don’t look my age,” she added.
