Rallies intended as shows of strength by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Delhi Congress, which comprised ‘hundreds of vehicles’, in the poll-bound Capital resulted in a gridlock at North-West and Outer Delhi on Sunday.
Commuters complained that jams were imposed upon routes across areas such as Pitampura, Rohini, Netaji Subhash Place, Rithala, Sultanpuri and adjacent locations due to two simultaneous rallies organised by the AAP and Congress candidates at the Assembly constituencies of Badli, Bawana and Mongolpuri almost simultaneously in the afternoon.
“North-West Delhi, entirely, had to suffer till late in the afternoon because of the rallies,” complained Kapil Gupta, 36, a businessman who resides in Rohini.
“I got stuck in a jam for an hour on my way to Netaji Subhash Place for breakfast with my family and then for another hour on my way back,” Mr. Gupta said.
The AAP had organised two rallies in North-West Delhi on Sunday; one of these was organised at the Badli Consituency, while the other was held at the adjacent Bawana constituency.
Meanwhile, former Delhi Congress MLA and ex-Minister Raj Kumar Chauhan organised one of his own rallies in the Mongolpuri constituency.
“The entire area was chock-a-block with vehicles and there was no police presence,” said Anita Ahuja, 30, an executive with a private firm. “Volunteers from both parties were zipping around on their motorcycles without helmets as drivers like me kept waiting for them to pass to claim our right of way,” she added.
A similar rally was organised by AAP candidate from Greater Kailash and former transport minister Saurabh Bhardwaj in which, according to residents, AAP cadre ‘openly fluted traffic norms’.
