The State of Delhi with 70 Assembly seats goes to the polls on November 29. The outgoing Congress Government of Sheila Diksit has completed 10 years in office. In the last assembly elections, the Congress won 47 seats, while the main opposition party BJP won 20 seats.

Delhi is the national capital, and hence also the centre of all the politics of India affecting it. These last five years have seen a major struggle by the working people against the attacks on their livelihood and rights. The drive to turn Delhi into a ‘world class city’ has been accompanied with massive attacks on the right to housing and livelihood of the working masses, with large scale eviction of slum dwellers and their rehabilitation to the far corners outside the city. Sealing of shops and small commercial establishments in order to make way for large scale investment in the retail market and the setting up of mega malls, has been another form of attack, affecting the livelihood of working people.

The question of security of homes of working people is a major question, as the areas where the working people reside are in the main designated as “unauthorised” under one pretext or another. The same areas are later diverted to commercial or luxury construction.

Civic amenities for the majority of the residents of Delhi remain in a pathetic condition. Public water supply and sanitation continue to elude the residents of slums and JJ colonies and they have to pay exorbitant rates to obtain the same through private contractors. Access to education and health facilities are also severely limited by the absence of quality services in these areas.

All this is notwithstanding that Delhi is a revenue surplus state. The state has emerged as a major commercial, banking, insurance, retail and entertainment centre of the country, for which the costs are being paid by the working people of Delhi while the benefits accrue to a minority elite.

Delhi has suffered ghastly terrorist attacks, organised to break the unity of the people; state terrorism, the targeting of people of specific communities, encounter killings, etc. has also intensified in recent years. While the BJP has stridently called for targeting the Muslim community as ‘terorists’ and accused the Congress Party of being ‘soft on terror’, the Congress Party government of Delhi has used this to justify the witch hunt of Muslim youth by the police and security forces.  

There is a sizable migrant labouring population from UP, Bihar, West Bengal in Delhi. The bourgeoisie deliberately targets this population for discrimination, and systematically carries out campaigns blaming these people for all the problems of the capital. This campaign has been legitimised by the Supreme Court in the name of “deporting Bangladeshis” and people living in the slums and resettlement colonies, especially the Muslim population, are the target of regular police attacks.

In the villages of North Delhi, there is mass discontent against the forcible acquision of land by the government for “development”. The Central and state governments are facilitating big capitalists like Reliance, Unitech, DLF, Ansals, etc. to grab land around the city.

Land is being provided to them at throwaway prices by various governments, which use old laws dating back to the period of colonial rule to forcibly acquire the land from residents.

Both Congress and BJP are trying to exploit these problems for advancing their electoral aims. Working people are increasingly seeking an alternative to these two parties. In these conditions, in different constituencies of the state, working people and their organisations are coming forward to select and elect candidates from amongst their midst, instead of becoming vote banks of parties of the bourgeoisie like Congress and BJP.