Candidates knock at God's door

Rivals for CM's post visit religious places day before Delhi votes

With the Capital going to polls on Saturday, the high-profile candidates were seen mingling with the public at religious places.

While the BJP’s chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi was seen praying at a gurdwara in Krishna Nagar constituency, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal visited both temple and gurdwaras in New Delhi constituency.

Bedi went one step further and even rolled out rotis in the community kitchen at the gurdwara.

For AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal de-stressing was high on the agenda.  The candidate from New Delhi constituency, who suffers from stress-related asthma, started his day with yoga at his Kaushambi residence in Ghaziabad. Speaking to reporters, he dismissed any nervousness about the outcome of the elections and said a win was “assured”.

He also visited a salon for a haircut later in the day.  The two prime candidates also took aggressively to Twitter in declaring their plans for the day and in launching attacks on other parties. In the morning, Kejriwal tweeted: “Will go to all temples and gurudwaras in my const today. I pray to God – “Saach ki jeet ho, Aam Aadmi ki jeet ho”.

He visited Birla Mandir, Gurdwara Bangla Sahib and Gurdwara Rakab Ganj Sahib in New Delhi constituency. Later in the day, he took a dig at the BJP on social media platform: “BJP has highlighted its seven months achievements in its full page ads today. Do these achievements excite u? R they as per ur expectations?”

Meanwhile, Bedi used Twitter to thank her supporters in two back-to-back tweets.
“Love begets love...There are givers...It only needs trusting receivers..,” she wrote.
Later, she tweeted, “Gratitude receives abundance...without asking...”

The President’s daughter – Sharmistha Mukherjee – spent the day strategising for the final day. “I am holding back-to-back meetings with my polling booth agents.”

Most other candidates held  closed-door meetings. BJP’s candidate from New Delhi constituency Nupur Sharma said, “Now I am just trying to focus. I spent the day meeting party volunteers who worked so hard in the past few weeks. They deserve to be thanked. The day was mostly spent in meeting and greeting them.”

Family life has taken a back seat in the past few weeks, she added.  The debutante is planning to move around near the polling booths in her constituency.

For Kiran Walia, the Congress candidate from the seat, the attention was on briefing polling agents too.

“I have never spent much time being involved in the administrative part of it. But yes, I have to have an idea of it so I am spending time in meetings.”

For other candidates, the routine was crammed with visits to religious places alongside meetings.

“Visits to gurdwaras and temples is a must every time before the final day arrives,” said M S Dheer, BJP’s candidate from Jangpura constituency. Dheer had fought the last Assembly elections as an AAP candidate and joined the BJP recently. He has been pitted against AAP’s Praveen Kumar and Congress’s Tarvinder S Marwah. He will be out by 8 am to cast his vote, he added.

For Asif Mohammad Khan, the Congress candidate from Okhla seat, the last day was spent among residents in the area. Khan had defeated the AAP candidate in the last elections by a margin of 26,545 votes.

Not ruling out feeling anxious, Khan said, “Let’s see what happens now. I do not want to make assumptions in the air.”