Satish Upadhyay on Assembly poll debut: here to make Delhiites’ lives easier

From student politics to the political forefront, Satish Upadhyay, 62, the BJP candidate from Malviya Nagar, has seen many elections during his decades-long career. But this is the first time the veteran leader is contesting an Assembly election. In the fray against incumbent MLA and AAP candidate Somnath Bharti and Congress’s Jitendra Kumar Kochar, Mr. Upadhyay makes the transition after gaining valuable experience from his stint as Delhi BJP chief from 2014-2016 — something he believes is likely to hold him in good stead in days ahead.

Mr. Upadhyay, who forayed into politics as a member of the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad in Delhi University, says he learnt the ropes of politics on the campus. “I learnt to fight for the rights of students back then. Now, I am fighting to make the lives of the larger population better,” said the former Delhi BJP chief.

“Over the past few decades, there is a sense of degradation in in Delhi. Residents feel let down by the degrading civic amenities. The AAP government has done everything but good governance,” the former vice chairman of New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) said, adding that other than the NDMC area, the rest of Delhi looks far from what the capital of a “developed India should look like”.

While he doesn’t come from a political family — his father worked in the Indian Railways — Mr. Upadhyay believes one doesn’t necessarily need a strong political background to make it big in the field.

During his tenure as the Delhi BJP president, his supporters protested outside the party office upset over the fact that Mr. Upadhyay was left out of the party’s list of candidates for the 2015 Assembly poll.

Remembering his early days in politics, Mr. Upadhyay recalls how he led a group of 116 people into the Assembly, albeit peacefully, to lodge their protest against the Sheila Dikshit-led government in 2003. “We got visitor passes for the people. Some of the passes were also given by Congress leaders. We were carrying banners and posters but none of our protesters were violent. No one was hurt, nothing was broken. And that is the kind of politics I want to do,” he said.