The New Delhi Parliamentary Constituency extends to Parliament House, Delhi Secretariat, Rajpath, Janpath and Connaught Place. The Lok Sabha seat came into existence in the year 1951. Earlier, the oldest existing Delhi constituency seat was occupied by the Congress but the New Delhi seat has in the recent past become a stronghold of the Bharatiya Janata Party. The BJP’s Jagmohan held the seat between 1996 and 2004, after which it went into the hands of the Congress party. Ajay Maken held the seat between 2004 and 2014 but was defeated in 2014 by the BJP’s Meenakshi Lekhi. One of seven parliamentary constituencies in the national capital, the New Delhi Lok Sabha seat is considered a very important seat. Stalwarts such as Atal Bihari Vajpayee, LK Advani and Jagmohan have preceded Lekhi as MPs from this seat. New Delhi MP and Minister of State for External Affairs and Culture of India Meenakshi Lekhi was an advocate who practised at the Supreme Court as well as various tribunals and forums. She began her political journey with the BJP in 2010 when she was appointed the national vice president of the Mahila Morcha. Four years later, she became a member of Parliament for the New Delhi constituency, defeating incumbent Maken with a margin of 270,000 votes. The Daily Guardian looks at how she has fared so far in her tenure as MP from the seat. The New Delhi Lok Sabha seat is a high-profile constituency with a total of 17 lakh voters.
Since the seat holds major importance, development is an important aspect that is focused on by sitting MPs. With a total of 10 assembly seats, this seat is where development is seen at its fastest. However, constituents have in the past faced issues regarding pensions, traffic snarls, accessible drinking water, proper garbage disposal and a lack of parking.
Lekhi has an MP made significant progress in dealing with these issues. Her achievements so far include renaming places, widespread access to drinking water, a campaign against pollution, urban beautification, alleviation of traffic and, women empowerment.
India News analysed Lekhi’s tenure on the basis of her Parliamentary performance as well as a ground and telephonic survey. As per the data, Lekhi has an 89 percent attendance rate in Parliament and has raised questions in the House 95 percent of times. So far, the MP has made use of 70 percent of MP funds available to her and has made 85 percent of special contributions. As per the survey, of the number of people surveyed, 71 percent of Delhiites said they were happy with the work of their MP. Additionally, 70 percent of people interviewed said they believed that the “Modi Factor” would work in the upcoming elections of 2024.
