New Delhi: In his second electoral outing, Congress leader Kanhaiya Kumar lost from the North East Delhi parliamentary constituency by 1,38,778 votes. With 8,24,451 votes, incumbent BJP MP Manoj Tiwari triumphed over Kumar, who got 6,85,673 votes.
In 2019, Kumar, then a member of the Communist Party of India, lost in Bihar’s Begusarai to BJP’s Giriraj Singh by over 4.2 lakh votes. He later joined the Congress in 2021 and was appointed as in-charge of the party’s student wing, the National Students Union of India (NSUI), in July 2023.
The former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union president was fielded from North East Delhi since it was considered as one of the “safest” Lok Sabha seats by the Congress due to multiple factors in play.
The North East Delhi constituency was considered as one of the “safest” Lok Sabha seats in Delhi by the INDIA bloc due to multiple factors such as presence of sizeable Muslim population (29.34 percent, according to the Census 2011), large number of Purvanchali voters, the alliance between AAP and Congress, anti-incumbency against Tiwari (who is the only sitting BJP MP to get a ticket this time in Delhi) among others.
The Congress fielded Kumar to regain its lost ground in Purvanchal-dominated lower income group areas in the constituency, which the party won from 2004 to 2014.
But the decision to field an “outsider” didn’t go down well with several senior leaders, including former MP Sandeep Dikshit and former Delhi Congress chief Arvinder Singh Lovely, who later resigned from the party and joined the BJP.
While the Congress had put senior leaders, including general secretary Sachin Pilot, to oversee the preparations, Kumar’s campaign was marred by delays, internal party bickering, lack of coordination between workers of two political parties and failure to counter the BJP’s ‘tukde-tukde’ narrative against him.
Though Congress leader Rahul Gandhi held a rally and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal did a roadshow for him, the party struggled to counter the BJP’s “anti-national” narrative against him alleging that he shouted anti-national slogans at the JNU in 2016.
“It was difficult to explain to people that he was not involved in it,” said a senior Congress leader.
Apart from this, Congress leaders admit that Kanhaiya’s election campaign started very late, giving him just 10-odd days to cover the entire constituency with over 24 lakh population.
Local connect missing
The North East Delhi constituency has close to 30 percent of Delhi’s Muslim population, a large segment of lower income group areas that are considered AAP strongholds and strong anti-incumbency two-term MP Manoj Tiwari.
Many in the party feel that the focus should have been more on highlighting the Tiwari’s failure to address local issues such as condition of road, water which impact a large population living in unauthorised colonies and slums in the constituency.
But the former JNUSU president chose to target PM Narendra Modi in his speeches and talk about the need to “save the Constitution” rather than focus more on local issues and attack the BJP MP.
The lower income group areas, which were once considered Congress’ support base but later moved to AAP, have supported the BJP in the past two elections. Tiwari, had defeated former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit by over 3.66 lakh votes in 2019.
The two-term MP had a strong anti-incumbency against him in unauthorised colonies and slums due to lack of development over the years, say Congress leaders.
(Edited by Tony Rai)