Pav Bhaji vendor, tyre mechanic among 22 Gurgaon candidates

Gurgaon, March 27 (IANS) Usha Rani Verma, Kusheshwar Bhagat and Abdul Latif are among the 22 candidates contesting for the Gurgaon Lok Sabha seat. They are a housewife, a Pav Bhaji vendor and a tyre mechanic.

Verma, a 36-year-old resident of Rajiv Nagar, is a post-graduate housewife and the only woman candidate.

Rao Inderjeet Singh of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Yogendra Yadav of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Zakir Hussain of the Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) and Rao Dharampal Singh of the Congress are the main contenders.

There are a total of 13 Independent candidates in the fray this time.

Kusheshwar Bhagat, a resident of Kirti Nagar here, hails from Maharashtra and has been living in Gurgaon for over 15 years. He is a Pav Bhaji vendor.

He had also contested in the 2009 Lok Sabha election and the last two assembly polls.

"I wanted to contest on an AAP ticket but could not get it," Bhagat said.

Though Bhagat never won any election, people call him "Election wala Pav Bhaji".

Abdul Latif, a resident of Sarai Alawardi village here, has been repairing punctured tyres for years.

"We were regular voters of the Congress. I don't want to vote for any other party, but the Congress was out of the fight. So I decided to contest as an Independent," Latif said.

In the 2009 election, there were two women candidates - Sudha Yadav of the BJP and Vimla, an Independent.