A fresh controversy has ignited over the New Delhi assembly seat, where BJP’s Parvesh Verma recently triumphed over AAP’s Arvind Kejriwal. But now, a Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) candidate claims the race itself was rigged — not by votes, but by locked doors and bureaucratic roadblocks.
Vishvanath Agarwal, who intended to contest from New Delhi on an NCP ticket, has approached the Delhi High Court, alleging that his nomination form was never accepted by the Returning Officer. His argument? He was denied entry, stalled by security guards, and finally shut out of the process altogether.
According to Agarwal, the Returning Officer’s office was suspiciously locked from the inside, guarded tightly, and when it did open, an announcement blared: only those physically inside the room before 3 PM would be allowed to file nominations. What followed, Agarwal claims, was pure chaos. Candidates swarmed the office in a last-minute rush — many never making it inside.
He says he waited — patiently, then desperately — until 8 PM. But the door never reopened for him. Instead, he claims, he was threatened and asked to leave. With no option left, he took his grievances to the District Magistrate and the Election Commission. Nothing came of it.
Earlier attempts to seek justice through appeals and writs were tossed out on technical grounds. Now, Agarwal has turned to an election petition, asking the Delhi High Court to declare the election results void and order a re-election for the New Delhi seat.
Justice Jasmeet Singh, who took up the matter briefly, has issued notice to 26 parties, including Verma, the Election Commission of India, and the other candidates — Kejriwal among them. The case will next be heard on May 27.
Verma clinched victory with 30,088 votes, defeating Kejriwal by a margin of 4,089. But if Agarwal’s claims gain traction, the New Delhi contest may be far from over — and the final chapter of this election could yet be unwritten.
