Chandni Chowk: Congress's Alka Lamba Finishes Third, AAP Wins

Congress candidate Alka Lamba lost from the Chandni Chowk constituency in Delhi.  She only managed to get a total of 3,881 votes. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP ) candidate Parlad Singh Sawhney won with a margin of 29,000 votes over his nearest rival Bharatiya Janata Party  (BJP ) candidate Suman Kumar Gupta.  

While Sawhney, a four-time Congress MLA, only joined AAP in 2019, Lamba’s jump from the Congress to AAP and back seems to have backfired on her. She won the Chandni Chowk seat in 2015, but quit the party in September last year after a bitter row with the leadership. She had earlier announced her decision to leave the party and contest the Delhi elections as an independent. However, she rejoined the Congress a month later. 

Lamba had been with the Congress for 20 years before joining AAP in 2013.

She was disqualified from the Delhi Assembly shortly after rejoining the Congress “on grounds of defection”. The petition against Lamba was moved by AAP’s Saurabh Bharadwaj. 

In 2015, she had defeated BJP’s Gupta by over 18,000 votes . While Congress ruled the constituency between 1998 and 2015, the BJP was in power between 1993 and 1998, according to IANS .

Taking on Sawhney, she said, “Why has Kejriwal given a ticket to Sawhney, who was AAP’s opponent last election? Only to cut the votes.”

She also attacked Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and AAP over freebies. Talking to Hindustan Times , she said, “Arvind Kejriwal says freebies are his USP. But if you ask people about it, they would say they don’t want freebies, they want houses, jobs and relief from inflation. They are saying that if he can provide these three things, they will take care of their electricity and water bills.”

Lamba’s assets have doubled in the last five years, PTI said, after looking at her election affidavit.