Only one Bengali, one Malayali elected to Assembly; Delhi partial to North Indians

New Delhi: As the campaign for the Delhi Assembly elections is in full swing, one thing looks clear: Delhi is not at all keen to give a fair deal to lakhs of non-Hindi speaking people of the capital. The three major parties – AAP, BJP, and Congress – have not given a ticket to any Bengali, Tamil, Malayali, Gujarati or any other non-Hindi speaking person.

Can you imagine, since the first Delhi Assembly elections that were held in 1951, it has elected only one Malayali and one Bengali to the Assembly? While Praful Ranjan Chatterjee was elected from the then Reading Road seat – it is now part of the New Delhi constituency – on a Congress ticket in 1951, Meera Bhardwaj, a Malayali married to a local person, won from Patparganj seat in 1998.

Will anybody in the three big parties in the capital enlighten us on why they do not consider non-Hindi speaking people as their candidates in Delhi? There are several areas in Delhi where “their” votes can tilt the scales. For instance, Chittaranjan Park, Minto Road, Mahavir Enclave, Tagore Park and many more areas have a sizable population of Bengal-speaking voters.

Perhaps not many people would be aware of the fact that outside West Bengal, the largest number of Bengali medium schools is in Delhi – there are seven of them. Meanwhile, Dilshad Garden, Mayur Vihar, and Janak Puri have already emerged as the bastions of Malayali power. You can buy copies of ‘Mathrubhumi’ and ‘Malayala Manorama’ from newspaper vendors in these areas.

Delhi’s ties to Tamils

Tamils are a big force in Karol Bagh, Rohini, RK Puram, and several other areas. Delhi’s Tamil community has given some really well-known names in the world of cinema and sport too. For instance, Ramanathan Krishnan, an ace Tennis player and Davis cupper of yesteryear is from Gole Market. The Gujarati community in Delhi has a big presence in Ragubir Nagar in west Delhi, parts of East Delhi and in the Civil Lines area.

When Delhi was more diverse

Arguably, Delhi was more diverse and open to accepting leaders from non-Hindi speaking states in the past. CK Nair, a Malayali, was elected from the Outer Delhi Lok Sabha seat in 1952 and 1957 respectively. He was known as Gandhi of rural Delhi. In the 1980 Lok Sabha polls, Congress fielded CM Stephen from the New Delhi seat against Bharatiya Janata Party stalwart Atal Bihari Vajpayee. CM Stephen used to address his meetings in Malayalam and had given a tough fight to the BJP leader, but lost by a very small margin. In the 80s, Shanti Desai, a Gujarati, was a top Jan Sangh/BJP leader in the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD). He even remained a Mayor of Delhi.

But for these small examples, Delhi has never given much of a chance to people from non-Hindi speaking States to contest from MCD to assembly and Lok Sabha polls. (IANS)

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