LS election result: BJP’s Harsh Malhotra bags east Delhi seat

East Delhi has over two million voters and is one of the largest constituencies in Delhi comprising 10 assembly areas

New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Harsh Deep Malhotra on Tuesday bagged the Jamnapaar east Delhi seat by a margin of 93,663 votes, securing 664,819 votes against Aam Aadmi Party’s Kuldeep Kumar, who got 571,156 votes. Both were contesting for the MP seat for the first time.

(Representative Photo)

In 2019, the east Delhi seat saw an interesting three-way contest when Gautam Gambhir, fielded by the BJP, Congress’ Arvinder Singh Lovely and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) minister Atishi. The BJP received over 55.33% of the votes and won by a margin of 3.91 lakh votes reduced to just over 83,000 this time.

Malhotra was elected as a councillor from Welcome Colony in 2012 and was also mayor of the erstwhile East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) in 2015-16.  

During the campaign ahead of the polls, Malhotra had released a manifesto listing four broad work areas along with 10 other promises for various parts of the constituency with timelines for completion, including setting up a Trans Yamuna development Board within two months of getting elected along with monorail connectivity between Shastri Park and Laxmi Nagar, east campus of the Delhi University, facelift of the Yamuna River bank and speedy redevelopment of Kalander Colony area and other JJ clusters.

“I stand by all the promises to the extent that I had earlier given deadlines for the time in which these will be fulfilled. I will continue to stand with the people and ensure that we immediately start work in some areas like cleaning of Yamuna banks and development of slums,” Malhotra said.

East Delhi has over two million voters and is one of the largest constituencies in Delhi comprising 10 assembly areas – Jangpura, Trilokpuri, Okhla, Kondli, Patparganj, Laxmi Nagar, Vishwas Nagar, Krishna Nagar, Gandhi Nagar and Shahdara.  

The new MP will face a mountain of challenges, including the Ghazipur landfill site in Kondli assembly area, pollution in Anand Vihar, traffic in Laxmi Nagar, condition of roads in Mayur Vihar and congestion and fire hazard in Gandhi Nagar market area.