WHO IS A K WALIA

Dr Ashok Kumar Walia, or A K Walia, is a senior leader of the Congress party. A prominent name in the party’s Delhi unit, Walia is one of the few to have served four terms as member of Legislative Assembly (MLA). After making a political debut in 1993, he represented the Geeta Colony seat for the first three terms and Laxmi Nagar for one term (as Geeta Colony ceased to be an Assembly seat after delimitation).

 

Born and raised in New Delhi, Walia holds an MBBS degree and is a physician by profession. He owns a nursing home in East Delhi’s Laxmi Nagar area.

 

Walia served as a state minister in Sheila Dixit’s government and held various key portfolios, such as health, urban development, and land & building. He was also the chairman of the Trans Yamuna Area Development Board.

 

In April 2017, ahead of the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) elections, Walia quit the party after being denied a ticket. He alleged that tickets were being sold for money. It was a big jolt to the party as he had a considerable popularity in East Delhi. After the elections, however, Walia returned to the Congress.

 

For the 2020 Delhi Assembly election, the Congress has named Walia its candidate in the Krishna Nagar constituency, which had in 2015 seen a famous battle between the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP’s) S K Bagga and the Bharatiya Janata’s Party’s chief ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi. While Bagga had emerged victorious by securing 2,277 more votes than Bedi (47.99 per cent vote share versus Bedi’s 46.33 per cent), Congress candidate Bansi Lal had fared poorly to come a distant third with only a 4.51 per cent share of the votes.