Headlines
Five Left parties got just 5,405 votes in Delhi
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By M.R. Narayan Swamy New Delhi, Feb 16
Believe it or not, five Left
parties got a grand total of 5,405 votes in the Delhi assembly
elections in which they fielded 14 candidates.
The Communist
Party of India (CPI), Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M),
Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist (CPI-ML), Forward Bloc and
Socialist Unity Centre of India (Communist) were in the fray as part of a
Left alliance.
The Socialist Party (India) and the Revolutionary
Socialist Party (RSP) did not put up any candidate but supported the
five Left parties.
The CPI contested five seats, the CPI-ML
Liberation three and the other three parties two seats each. The Left
asked its activists and supporters to vote for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)
in the remaining 56 seats.
When the votes were counted, the Left found it had collectively won 5,405 votes in the 14 constituencies.
The
largest number of votes (947) went to Rakesh Kumar of the SUCI-
Communist at Badli. The least (52) were secured by Rakesh Sharma of the
Forward Bloc at Mundka.
Collectively, CPI candidates Sanjeev
Kumar Rana (Timarpur), Abdul Jabbar (Ballimaran), Dalip Kumar (Palam),
Khubi Ram (Trilokpuri) and Chandan Lal Premi (Krishna Nagar) bagged
2,393 votes.
The CPI-M's Ranjit Tiwari secured 712 votes at Karawal Nagar and Premchand (Dwarka) 264.
Surender
of the CPI-ML Liberation got 363 votes at Narela. His colleagues Ajay
Kumar Singh (Wazirpur) and Mala Devi (Kondli) got 183 and 230 votes
respectively.
Rakesh Sharma of Forward Bloc got just 52 votes in Mundka, and his party colleague Hari Shankar Sharma 131 at Nangloi Jat.
While Rakesh Kumar won 947 votes at Badli, his SUCI-Communist colleague Ritu Kaushik collected 130 votes at Sadar Bazar.
The
5,405 votes the Left secured in 14 constituencies were thousands and
thousands of votes less than what the three AAP losers got in each
constituency.
The AAP swept the Delhi election, winning 67 of the
70 seats. It lost only three seats -- Rohini, Mustafabad and Vishwas
Nagar -- to the Bharatiya Janata Party.
AAP loser C.L. Gupta in
Rohini got 54,499 votes. Mohammed Yunus in Musatafabad -- the only AAP
candidate to finish third -- won 49,791 votes and Atul Gupta at Vishwas
Nagar collected 47,966 votes.
Ahead of the Feb 7 Delhi election,
the Left parties came out with a joint statement listing the issues on
which they will seek votes in the dominantly low-income and working
class areas where they were contesting.
These included
implementation of minimum wages and all labour laws, the rights of
street hawkers, end to demolition of slums, issues of sanitation and
water, and end to privatization of essential services.
"We appeal
to the people of Delhi to vote for Left candidates to ensure there is a
robust voice of opposition inside and outside the assembly that can
champion the issues of the common people, poor and working masses," a
joint Left statement said.
Left leaders say they need to fight
elections, irrespective of whether they lose or win, to further their
support base. Everyone does not agree.
"I don't even know why we
contest these elections and get humiliated," a CPI leader told IANS. "We
should have simply supported the AAP. We know we can't win, then why
contest?"
(M.R. Narayan Swamy can be reached on [email protected] )