Party workers protest nomination of ‘outsider’

New Delhi, April 22

Tensions flared outside the DPCC office on Monday as party cadres protested against the nomination of Udit Raj for the North West Delhi Lok Sabha seat. The demonstrators voiced their discontent, labelling Raj an “outsider” and calling for a local leader to be fielded instead.

While DPCC chief Arvinder Singh Lovely was introducing the three Lok Sabha candidates, protesters gathered outside the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Marg office, raising slogans against “outsider candidates” in the elections. Their chants included ‘Bahari ummeedwar nahin chalega’ (outsider candidate will not be accepted).

Raj, who won from North West Delhi in 2014 as a BJP candidate and later joined the Congress in 2019, dismissed the protests, describing the demonstrators as “not of sound mind” and calling for their expulsion from the party. “I served as an MP from 2014 to 2019, and now I have become an outsider,” Raj said, adding, “I will win by a significant margin.”

Lovely emphasised the democratic nature of the Congress during a press conference. “The Congress is the only party where everyone is allowed to raise their voice. This shows that there is a lot of demand for Congress tickets,” Lovely stated.