Congress candidate Kanhaiya Kumar arrives for the inauguration of a party office, in New Delhi, Sunday, April 28, 2024.
PTI Photo
New Delhi: A group of Congress workers on Sunday held a protest near the office of Kanhaiya Kumar, the party’s Northeast Delhi candidate for Lok Sabha polls, demanding a local person to be nominated from the seat.
The protest was held near the Maujpur metro station.
Navdeep Sharma, one of the protesters, said they want a local candidate from the seat.
"We want our own candidate or leader to fight otherwise, we should have a meeting so that we can express our feelings with the high command. We need a local candidate from among us; we don't want an outsider. Our dissatisfaction is not with anyone; we don't have any problem with anyone,” Sharma told PTI Videos.
He added if there is an outsider candidate, their local politics will be neglected.
Another protester said that they had raised objections earlier, but their voices were allegedly not heard, so now they have taken to the streets as they don't like Kanhaiya Kumar.
“People from outside don't know anything, they don't even know our streets. Why are they being given tickets? We're not against anyone, we just want someone from here, someone who knows our streets and understands our issues,” the protester said.
Candidates like Arvinder Singh Lovely, Sandeep Dikshit etc should be given the ticket because they understand the local problems, he said.
"We are not against the Congress. We want someone who is dedicated to our community, not just a celebrity among us. That's our only demand,” the protester stated.
When asked about the protest, a senior party leader denied any anger among the workers claiming that Kumar is getting a lot of love from the local people and it will also be converted into votes.
The protests come after the resignation of Congress' Delhi unit chief Arvinder Singh Lovely in protest against the alliance with AAP brought the party's factional feud into the open, with a section of leaders on Sunday demanding the removal of AICC in-charge Deepak Babaria.
In his resignation letter to Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Lovely said the Delhi Congress unit was against the alliance with AAP and that all unanimous decisions taken by the senior Delhi unit leaders have been "unilaterally vetoed" by Babaria.
He also criticised Congress candidates - Kanhaiya Kumar from Northeast Delhi and Udit Raj from Northwest Delhi - for their statements and said that tickets were given to two people who are total strangers to the Delhi Congress and party policies.
When asked about the development, Kumar said, “I don’t know. I don’t have any information. Let me gather information from the party and then I will tell you.”