JOIN USIt is her first electoral outing but she is showing no signs of nervousness. BJP’s candidate from New Delhi constituency, Meenakshi Lekhi says, “My job has been made easy by the sitting MP’s poor performance on the ground.”
“I am not finding my first election very difficult because, basically, I am a people’s person,” she said.
A lawyer and party’s spokesperson, Lekhi has started taking out padyatras in her constituency and even the gruelling schedule has failed to dim her tendency to give diplomatic replies.
Does being a woman candidate help?
“I think it helps to be a good candidate,” she said, in a guarded reply but quickly added, “Being a woman does improve the level of interaction with voters, especially women.”
Talking about competing against two-time MP Ajay Maken, Lekhi said: “I do not consider anyone as a challenge for me. It is the other way round, I am a big challenge for the rivals.”
Mixing issues of national development, women security and local infrastructure is the mantra that Lekhi is relying for wooing voters.
“The challenge before me is to set the system right. Infrastructure is virtually non-existent in some of the areas like Kasturba Nagar and Sewa Nagar which I visited,” she said.
Asked if she considered the Aam Aadmi Party as a serious player in the so-called triangular fight, Lekhi said, “The AAP is a front for the Congress. It is part of the ‘Congress’ bachao yojna (save Congress plan).”
The BJP candidate said she has been telling her voters to be wary of the AAP and the Congress as only the BJP under the leader of Narendra Modi can take the country on the road to development.
On women safety, she said the real problem for women in India today is personal safety. “In Indian culture, we totally accept the female form as divine. Our top most deities in Hinduism are female and even Indian Catholics worship Virgin Mary as a divinity. There is no shortage of role models for women in India, whether it is in politics, media, entertainment, business or sports,” said the lawyer who joined politics at the age of 43.