MARCH

General perception is that Modi
wave has blown off the Congress,
Do you think the same? What will
be impact of Modi on the Lok Sabha
elections?
It is all a media generated hype. How
can you four months before the elections
carry out an opinion poll or survey
without even alliances have being firmed
up, without even candidates being
decided, how can anyone say which party
will win and which party will lose. So this
is all absurd and if you look at previous
opinion polls, the pollsters have never
been kind to Congress party. In 2004
NDA was given more than 260 seats to
fell short by more than 120. Similarly, in
2009, the best of opinion poll gave just
five seats to Congress in Uttar Pradesh
while the party ended up with a tally of
22 seats. So opinion polls time and again
for Parliament elections have proven to
be wrong, this time too it is going to be
no different.
Congress’ loss is being considered
as third front’s gain? What are your
views on third front politics?
Third front, I don’t think it is an
idea which has ever clicked. So this
is something which has been talked
about and again and again. If you look
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at history I don’t think third front is a
serious challenger because it is mainly a
composition of regional parties, regional
aspirations, so there is no unifying
thread except from anti-Congressism
or sometimes anti-BJPism among the
parties.
Bharat Nirman is a brain child of
UPA. Do you really think that after
Bharat Nirman the scenario of rural
India is completely changed as
claimed by UPA campaign?
Absolutely, Bharat Nirman has
completely changed rural India. If you
look at the housing through Indira Awas
Yojna, we have been able to construct a
large number of houses, if you look at
poverty reduction 14 crore people have
been lifted out of poverty. It is a record,
nowhere in the world such a large
number of people have been taken out of
poverty in a span of just 10 years. Look at
life expectancy, life expectancy has gone
up by five years in the last 10 years. If you
look at the teledensity it is 42 percent in
rural areas and more than 80 percent in
urban areas. We have connected rural
India, with not only telephone, but road,
houses and jobs as in MGNREGA.
As a Member of Parliament
what’s your contribution to your
constituency?
Well my constituency, I can say is
dominated by traders, by government
employees and army men who are all
literate. So for each and every segment
including slum dwellers, resettlement
colonies, I have done my bit. I think I
have done quite a lot through the master
plan 2021 which we were able to bring in
2007 and two subsequent amendments
after that, we have been able to provide
relief in an orderly manner to many
traders in Delhi, who have now no fear
of their shops and establishments been
sealed. The industrial areas we declared
are in such a way that people now know
where to have industries it has helped
in reducing pollution. For government
employees we were successful in
implementing the 6th pay commission
in a record time and likewise 7th pay
commission has been set up much before
the deadline without any protest by
employees. For the service men we have
come out with one rank-one pension. So
for every section of society as a sports
minister, I opened up all the stadia in
my constituency for general public. One
important thing is that I am perhaps the
only MP in Delhi to have spent the entire
MP lad fund for the development.