Despite low vote share, East Delhi MP-elect Harsh Malhotra set to become Union minister of state

Harsh Malhotra is likely to be sworn in as a minister of state (MoS) in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) council of ministers under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Chosen to be fielded from the BJP stronghold of East Delhi parliamentary constituency, Malhotra, 47, claimed 52.33 per cent of the votes, defeating the INDIA bloc’s candidate, the AAP Kondli MLA Kuldeep Kumar. He polled 6,64,819 votes against Kumar’s 5,71,156 votes, for a victory margin of 93,663 votes. However, his victory margin of 6.85 per cent votes is the lowest in terms of vote share among the seven BJP MP elects from Delhi.

BJP sources said that until noon on Sunday, Malhotra was the only BJP MP-elect from the capital to attend an event at 7 Lok Kalyan Marg for potential members of the Modi-led government’s third term.

Malhotra was serving his second consecutive term as Delhi BJP general secretary when he was chosen to replace former India cricketer Gautam Gambhir from the constituency.

Considered Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva’s right-hand man and a loyal “organisational man”, Malhotra is a graduate in botany and law from Delhi University and has climbed up the organisational ranks of the party over several decades. He is a former district president from Navin Shahdara and was elected as a councillor from East Delhi in 2017. He later rose to the rank of mayor of the erstwhile East Delhi Municipal Corporation.

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