|
Poll cancelled
Poll to the Rajinder Nagar Assembly seat in Central Delhi has been deferred following the death of Yogi. The Rajender Nagar constituency will not go to polls as scheduled on November 29, said S.M. Bharadwaj, returning officer of the Rajender Nagar constituency.He said the further notification in regard to the future elections in the constituency would come from the Central Election Commission. As per now, the elections to the seat stand cancelled. |
New Delhi, November 16
Puran Chand Yogi (73), BJP MLA from Rajender Nagar in Central Delhi, allegedly committed suicide at his residence in Indarpuri colony of South West Delhi this morning. Yogi, a three-time legislator from Rajender Nagar, was contesting on a BJP ticket from the same seat in the forthcoming Assembly elections.
According to the police, Asha, deceased MLA’s wife, found him hanging from a ceiling fan on the first floor of their house around 7 am today. She, reportedly, had gone upstairs to call him as his mobile phone was constantly buzzing. Asha said she did not notice anything unusual in the temperament of the deceased leader when he got up around 5 am like other days. Yogi was rushed to a nearby nursing home where he was declared brought dead. Besides wife, he is survived by a daughter and a son.
According to party cadres, Yogi was initially tensed when the BJP had delayed confirming his ticket from Rajender Nagar, but everything became normal after confirmation.
“We have no clue as to what made him take such an extreme step. I had met him yesterday for almost an hour and everything seemed normal. He was pretty confident about his victory,” said Ramesh Sharma, a BJP worker from his constituency. Yogi, contesting against Congress candidate Ramakant Goswami, was fully engaged in the election campaign till yesterday, added Sharma.
He had defeated Raj Kumar Kohli of the Congress by 891 votes during the last Assembly elections.
Meanwhile, the BJP has demanded a probe into the alleged suicide of Yogi. The police is questioning the family members of the departed leader, as some of them had initially said Yogi died of cardiac arrest.
Several senior BJP leaders, including party’s chief ministerial candidate V.K. Malhotra, rushed to the residence of the deceased leader and expressed condolences to the family.
Delhi BJP leader Vijay Goel said, “It is a shock for me and the party. I fail to understand what drove him to take such an extreme step. Earlier, he was a bit tensed, as his candidature was delayed. But the party gave him a chance again and things became normal.”
“Yogi’s victory was certain. We have demanded a probe into his death,” said senior BJP leader Shahnawaz Hussain.
Delhi BJP chief Harsh Vardhan said he knew Yogi for the past 15 years and had worked together in the Assembly. “The party has lost a committed worker. We are really shocked,” he said. The saffron party’s candidate for New Delhi constituency, Vijay Jolly, also met the bereaved family. “We have lost our brother,” he said.
Born in Gujranwala town of Pakistan in 1935, Yogi has been active in politics since 1967. He contested the Delhi Assembly elections for the first time in 1993 and thereafter returned to the state legislature again in 1998 and 2003.
