Will Sandeep Dixit avenge the defeat of his mother and the three-time Chief Minister of Delhi Sheila Dixit and beat Arvind Kejriwal in his New Delhi constituency in the Delhi Assembly Elections 2025? Is the AAP leader facing the toughest electoral battle of his life as the Congress has fielded Sandeep as its candidate after the talks for the coalition between the two parties collapsed last week?
It was New Delhi, where Arvind Kejriwal challenged Sheila Dixit in the 2013 Delhi Assembly Elections and defeated her by a margin of 25,000 votes. The victory margin went up in 2015 to 31,000. However, it plummeted to just 2,000 in 2020.
Plummeting Victory Margin Upsets AAP
This is the main cause of concern for the AAP and its supremo. Though the AAP has come out with fresh tranche of freebies before the Delhi Assembly Elections, the party has lost much of the sheen that it developed around the plank of its reported fight against corruption.
The arrest of its ministers like Satyendar Jain, Manish Sisodia and then Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has eroded much of its credibility developed around charges of corruption against the Congress Party and Anna Hazare movement in 2012.
Arvind Kejriwal To Fight Anti-Incumbency
Political analysts also believe the AAP government has not done much to improve the infrastructure of the national capital. It main plank of free electricity, medical health care and water subsidy may not have too much appeal to the people of New Delhi constituency.
New Delhi’s seat is an area dominated by government employees and upper-middle-class citizens. What may appeal to slum-dwellers may fail to attract the upwardly mobile class.
Keeping in mind this strategy, Sandeep Dixit has raked up the issue of development of the state. Slamming the former Delhi CM, he said that Kejriwal had brought Delhi to a place where all the systems collapsed.
Sandeep Dixit To Target Disappointed Voters
Announcing his strategy to attract those voters who are disappointed by Kejriwal, Dixit said, the 10 years of failure would make him lose the election. He emphasised that the disappointed voters would come to Congress on their own.
The BJP has made the contest interesting by fielding Parvesh Verma, son of former Delhi Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma. Trying to encash the common man image of Kejriwal, the AAP coined the slogan “Do CM ke bete aur ek Dilli ka beta (Sons of two CMs versus Delhi’s son)”.
New Delhi To Choose CM
The AAP may try to drive the point home that the people of the area would not elect just an MLA, they would choose the Chief Minister of the state and may be able to get the benefit of living in his constituency.
The Congress has its own plan to counter it. They have started saying that Sandeep Dikshit is the party’s CM face. They may say that as Dixit has already served two consecutive terms in the Lok Sabha, and he carries the legacy of Sheila Dikshit, who is still remembered for her development work in Delhi, Sandeep should not be taken lightly.
Kejriwal Has Deep Roots
However, Arvind Kejriwal has his groundwork in the area, besides being the CM face. He never lost his contact with the mass of the area. He took time out of his busy schedule as the CM of the state and remained in touch with the people.
If media reports are to be believed, he went to the extent of attending weddings and birthdays and local sports events in his constituency. He kept on visiting them on most of the Sundays.
As Arvind Kejriwal has made deep inroads and maintained his roots deep in the area, people may vote for him for personal reasons even if the freebie politics fail to attract them.
The people of New Delhi may elect the next CM. Will it be Arvind Kejriwal or Sandeep Dixit? Time will decide it.
