POLL LIST, GANGRAPE & STUDENTS' AGITATION

City This Week

Finally the list is out. As the capital city is celebrating Makar Sankranti with other states and poll notification has been issued by the Election Commission, the process of announcement of name of candidates for assembly polls has started. While LJP and some other parties have already announced the names of candidates, the ruling AAP too announced the names of its candidates for all 70 assembly seats in Delhi. Other two major parties BJP and Congress too will announce their candidates in couples of days.

But the list of AAP is quite interesting. While, city’s CM heavily relying on women voters for the elections the list elaborates completely different story. The list of 70 candidates include less than 15 percent female candidates. Only nine women candidates have been accomodated in the list although 23 new faces have been included in the list. Although, 15 new candidates have been accomodated in the list but there are several allegations and counter allegations started taking place regarding corruption during the ticket distribution.

The city is already witnessing some interesting war of words between Delhi’s BJP Chief Manoj Tiwari and city’s CM Arvind Kejriwal after Bhojpuri actor turned politician Tiwari allegedly appeared in Kejriwal’s promo. Tiwari slapped rupees 500 crore legal notice on Kejriwal for defamation. The list of BJP and Congress yet to be appeared as both are waiting for each other’s strategies.  

Delhi’s much-hyped gangrape case Nirbhaya has now encountered with another twist. As Supreme court rejected curative petition of two of the convicts and High Court has clearly refused to put a stay on the death warrants of the convicts the city government has said that hanging of the convicts could not take place on the scheduled date due to technical-legal reasons. This clearly means that execution of capital punishment needs more time.

As the tussle between agitated students and university administration has started defusing the JNU and Jamia have now started academic activities. The city too has taken a sigh of relief as students of both the universities are now participating in the academic activities rather than the misleading agitations. However, demands of students and faculty are yet to be fulfilled but process of dialogue has taken place. Although some of the agitations are still taking place in the city and some of the protesters have been able to show their anguish to the PM Narendra Modi as he was going to participate in the global meet ‘Raisina Dialogue’ in New Delhi. Gobal leaders discussed several issues including climate change and Iran issue during their discussions.