Assembly face-off: Sonia harps on engineering, Mayawati’s focus on social engineering

With less than a week to go for the Delhi Assembly elections, the Congress and the Bahujan Samaj Party held mega rallies with their chiefs going all out to hardsell the party’s plans for the Capital. With Sonia Gandhi holding court at the Ramlila Grounds in Mongolpuri and Mayawati in Trilokpuri, evening traffic was chaotic.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi said one of the biggest challenges for the country is the politics played out in the name of terrorism. Though she stopped short of naming any party, it was clear she was attacking the Bharatiya Janata Party’s move to make terrorism an election issue. It became difficult to manage the crowd when Sonia stepped down from the dais and went to the grounds to mingle the people.

Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit targetted the 40-lakh strong vote bank in the 1500 unauthorised colonies. “Our opponents might say regularisation was a farce but the colonies have been legally registered,” she said. She promised reduction of sewage problems within eight months and introduction of another 10,000 low floor buses by 2010. “The Commonwealth Games and their players will come and go but the infrastructure will stay with the people forever,” she said.

In her first rally of a series ahead of the Assembly polls, Mayawati promised a ‘social engineering’ formula to “benefit the sarvajan” in Delhi. With an eye on the Lok Sabha elections, the BSP chief asserted she was a better bet than the Congress and the BJP.

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