Senior AAP leader and Delhi’s deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia retained his Patparganj seat in the Delhi assembly election in a race that ended in a nailbiting finish.
Sisodia was trailing BJP’s Ravinder Singh Negi for most of the day but came up from behind to win by just over 3,000 votes.
Sisodia thanked the people and said they had voted for education, development and the work done by the Kejriwal-led AAP government in Delhi.
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Sisodia is a member of AAP’s Political Affairs Committee and National Executive. He also holds a number of portfolios in the Delhi government, including education, finance, planning, women and child development, and tourism.
In 2015, Sisodia defeated BJP’s Vinod Kumar Binny by over 28,000 votes in Patparganj constituency. He had won the seat by an even bigger margin in 2013.
According to an Indian Express report, the minister has a lot of goodwill in his constituency for the work done in schools. The report also says in 2015 Patparganj had the largest number of voters among the East Delhi constituencies, with over 2,14,360 people.
One of AAP’s main poll planks was its government’s work in education. “The AAP government is the only government in Asia with the highest allocation for education,” Sisodia had told Times of India, “The decreasing education budget by the BJP governments proves that BJP is an anti-education party and wants to ruin the future of the youth.”
“AAP has made a huge effort to raise the standards of Delhi in the domains of finance, delivery and results. The basic principle driving this growth is the investment in education,” he had said.
At a News18 network conclave, the deputy chief minister extended support to anti-CAA protesters at Shaheen Bagh, saying he stood with them.
Sisodia later said, “The Union home minister is responsible for law and order in Delhi. If there’s a civilian uprising in any part of the country, the onus should be on him to deal with it. The Shaheen Bagh protesters have put forward a demand that they want met. I believe the home minister should meet the protesters and talk it out with them.”
He offered Union home minister Amit Shah a tour of the capital to show him the work the Delhi government had done during its tenure.