Sweet revenge for BJP’s Praveen Khandelwal in Chandni Chowk

Anshita Mehra

New Delhi, June 4

BJP’s Praveen Khandelwal on Tuesday won from the Chandni Chowk constituency in the national capital, defeating his nearest rival Congress veteran JP Agarwal by a margin of 89,325 votes.

Khandelwal’s victory — which marks his entry into the Lok Sabha — is also being seen as a sweet revenge. Back in the 1989 Lok Sabha elections, JP Agarwal had defeated Khandelwal’s uncle Satish Khandelwal by a margin of 9,000 votes. The BJP candidate’s triumph, by a nearly 9.8 times margin, serves as a poignant revenge for his late uncle.

Despite being a first-time contender in the Lok Sabha elections, Khandelwal managed to defeat Agarwal, a seasoned politician and four-time MP who represented Chandni Chowk in 1984, 1989 and 1996, and North East Delhi in 2009.

This is Agarwal’s third consecutive defeat in the Lok Sabha elections. He previously lost to Manoj Tiwari in 2014 in North East Delhi by a margin of 3,81,333 votes and to Harsh Vardhan in 2019 by a margin of 2,28,145 votes in Chandni Chowk.

Khandelwal began his political journey as an ABVP activist during his college days and forayed into electoral politics during the 2008 Delhi Assembly elections from the Chandni Chowk seat, where he could not succeed. However, his persistent strategic campaigning has finally paid off.

During the poll campaign, Khandelwal had told The Tribune that the age factor was the key element in his strategy to register a win over Agarwal. After the results were declared, Khandelwal expressed his gratitude to the voters.

“The people of Delhi have shown that the heart of the nation beats for PM Modi and that they do not trust (Arvind) Kejriwal’s manipulative politics and false promises and they didn’t find Congress to be trustworthy. All seven seats in Delhi have gone to the BJP, indicating that people have once again reposed their faith in Modi’s guarantee of development,” added Khandelwal.