More than two decades after she made her debut in the National Capital’s political mainstream against former Delhi Chief Minister Madan Lal Khurana, the Congress has picked Alka Lamba to take on another CM, this time a sitting one. In what is expected to be one of the high-profile battles, Lamba will take on the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Atishi from the Kalkaji constituency.
Congress insiders said Lamba’s candidature was initially supposed to be announced as part of the party’s first list of candidates on December 12 but it was delayed since she was “not convinced” about contesting from Kalkaji.
Lamba joined the National Students Union of India (NSUI), the students’ wing of the Congress, during her stint at Delhi University in the mid-1990s and was elected DU Students’ Union president in 1995 as the party introduced a “new wave of young leaders” under the leadership of former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao.
A former NSUI president, Lamba next rose through the ranks of the women’s wing of the party, going from a general secretary in 2002 to the president of the All India Mahila Congress in 2024. This, party insiders said, was because of her “boldness and excellent speaking skills”. She also served in several roles in the All India Congress Committee (AICC) and the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee.
In 2003, Lamba was picked to face BJP’s Khurana, dubbed “Dilli ka Sher” or the “Lion of Delhi”. A decade earlier, Khurana had become the National Capital Territory’s first CM since the office was restored after 37 years and a Legislative Assembly was created. However, she lost to Khurana from Moti Nagar in what ended up being the BJP leader’s last election.
Close to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, Lamba shifted to the AAP and served as a spokesperson and campaigner. The following year, the AAP fielded her from Chandni Chowk and she was elected MLA.
Four years later, in September 2019, as a furore erupted in the Assembly over a decision to pass a resolution seeking to revoke the Bharat Ratna conferred on former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi over the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Lamba refused to back it and returned to the Congress.
She was fielded again from Chandni Chowk against Parlad Singh Sawhney, a Congress turncoat, but failed to win this time.
A staunch critic of both the AAP and the BJP, Lamba last month took on former CM Arvind Kejriwal over “politics of religion” after he announced that the AAP government would pay remuneration to priests and granthis in Delhi. “Former Chief Minister of Delhi @ArvindKejriwal ji came to power against corruption but as soon as he came to power, he had to lose his position due to the same corruption. At one time they (the AAP) were bitter opponents of vote-bank politics; they had come to change the system; today they have had a change of heart; they are competing to go two steps ahead of the BJP in the politics of religion,” she alleged in a post on X.
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