New Delhi: The last day of nominations for the February 8 Assembly elections turned dramatic for the ruling Aam Aadmi Party as close to 30 sacked DTC employees filed their candidature ahead of the Delhi Chief Minister, who waited for close to seven hours to file his nomination with token number 45 in hand.
Kejriwal reached the office of the Returning Officer (RO) to file his nomination from the New Delhi Assembly seat around 12.30 pm on Tuesday. However, even at 7 pm he was still waiting for his turn.
The Chief Minister was accompanied by his wife and parents along with party leaders Pankaj Gupta and Gopal Mohan.
As the clock ticked 3 pm -- the deadline for the filing nomination -- the anxiety prevailed among the party leaders and volunteers as the party's chief minister face was yet to file the nominations.
Though the deadline for filing nominations was 3 pm, all those who have been given token, would be allowed to submit their papers.
Party's spokesperson Saurabh Bhardwaj went on to call it "nuisance", adding an organised group of 50 candidates was taking tokens to file nomination at New Delhi every day for the last 4 days. "But they were not filing nominations. They just wanted to harass Kejriwal. This situation was very much in the knowledge of the RO & DM," said Bhardwaj.
Earlier, he said around 35 candidates sitting at the RO office with CM, "without" proper nomination papers. "They are calling their proposers on phone to come. They are insisting unless their papers are complete and they file their nomination, they won't allow the CM to file his papers," Bhardwaj said.
However, this partially turned out to be true as a huge number of those in the list were the sacked DTC contractual employees.
The drivers and conductors of Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC), who lost their contract jobs, had last year floated a political party, the 'Mazdoor Ekta Party'. However, just only one among them filed from the party, while close to 30 sacked DTC employees are contesting the election as an Independent against Kejriwal.
Manoj Sharma, one of the members of the DTC Contractual Employees Union, who filed his papers as an Independent, said they do not have any job.
"This is like a job fair for us. We want a job and this is that for us. We are contesting against Kejriwal to save the Constitution and the common man," Sharma told IANS.
When asked if this is just to trouble the Chief Minister, Sharma said the DTC employees have a strong vote base and will win against Kejriwal.
He said this is not just the only seat where the sacked DTC candidates are filing nominations. "On several other seats as well the sacked employees are filing the papers," he added.
While the AAP leaders seemed annoyed with the delay, Kejriwal called the other contestants his family.
"Many of them are filing for the first time. They are bound to make mistakes. We also made mistakes the first time. We should hand-hold them. I am enjoying waiting with them. They are all part of my family," Kejriwal tweeted, in response to Bhardwaj's tweet.
Delhi Deputy Cheif Minister Manish Sisodia, however, said the other contestants were planted by the BJP.
"The BJP has put 45 candidates before Kejriwal. The Election Commission is deliberately giving a long time to every candidate, whose papers are not complete or even to those whose proposal is not ready so that Kejriwal can be prevented from filling the nominations," Sisodia tweeted.
He said Kejriwal cannot be stopped. Delhi goes to the polls on February 8 and Tuesday was the last date for filing nominations.
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