Delhi polls 2015: Why Ajay Maken is the right CM candidate in the wrong party

A three-time legislator and a two-time parliamentarian, Ajay Maken is, unabashedly, a Delhi veteran. But he has a challenging battle ahead in his newly adopted Sadar Bazaar constituency. Contesting against first timer Praveen Jain (BJP) and incumbent MLA from AAP, Som Dutt, Maken seems to have a head start over his competitors by dint of being a known face. However, that may not take him far in an election that has got polarised between the BJP and the AAP.

Though the Congress is not even featuring in election discussions inside newsrooms and has been forgotten by the political pundits, the people of Delhi are still quite fond of him. In fact, a lot of them believe that he is actually the best chief ministerial candidate for the capital state as compared to AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal and BJP’s candidate Kiran Bedi. Unfortunately for Maken, he is in the wrong party.

“Both Kejriwal and Bedi are inexperienced when it comes to politics itself, let alone running a government in the capital,” Mahender Singh, a resident of Lodi colony, said. “Maken has the necessary experience and the political grooming to work around the necessary evils and yet get the job done. People like Kiran Bedi and Arvind Kejriwal are good for making noise and bringing certain issues to the limelight, but dealing with those issues and formulating a resolution is a whole different ball game,” he added.

In addition to his political experience, Maken also has one thing that the rest of the prominent leaders in the Congress don’t, a clean image. Also, Maken is someone people have met in the past and according to residents of East Kidwai Nagar, he is among the few Congress leaders who has done work for the people of Delhi.

The popular notion seems to be on the same lines as Singh. Those planning to vote for the BJP are voting for either Modi or against Kejriwal for his 49-day stint last year as the Chief Minister of Delhi, others, voting for Kejriwal are doing so, because they think the BJP has lost their minds to have selected Bedi as their CM candidate.

“Both Kejriwal and Bedi are not the kind of politicians who you want to be the chief running the government in your city. Look at Mamata Banerjee and what she has done to Bengal. We needed a level headed bloke like Maken to be the CM in Delhi,” Papri Sarkar, a resident of Chittaranjan Park, said. Most of the government officials, both senior and mid-level, have a lot of respect for Maken. According to them, he was instrumental in implementing the six-pay commission, which made the lives of many lakh government employees financially better.

“Not only did our financial situation get comfortable after the sixth-pay commission, but he had been relentlessly endorsing the implementation of the seventh-pay commission as well when he was the Union housing and urban poverty alleviation minister,” a senior central government official, said. “Among the three candidates, he is definitely the best, yet, Congress cannot be trusted again and he alone can’t run the whole administration,” he added.

Maken has also been youth leader face of the Congress over the years. His association with the National Students’ Union India is also likely to help the party. He was the youngest member of the Delhi assembly in 1993, at 29, and was the first Delhi University Students’ Union president to have been elected in the Legislative assembly. In the 2001 Sheila Dikhsit-led Congress government, he was transport, power and tourism minister.