Faridabad: This businessman wants to end quota system, ready for third attempt

CHANDIGARH: Deepak Gaur has contested and lost elections twice already, but he is yet to give up. A businessman who could get just 407 votes when he fought the 2014 parliamentary polls from Faridabad seat, Gaur — who is the candidate of a party which aims to end caste-based reservation in India — says another defeat would not affect him, but he is still hoping to get lucky on his third attempt.
Gaur is the Faridabad candidate of Aarakshan Virodhi Party (AVP). He says his party is not against any specific community, but it wants the government to do away with the reservation system completely. “In the name of reservation, all parties have been offering ‘lollipops’ to our brothers from all communities and there is no real change on the ground. Our priority should be to strengthen the quality of education at government schools, so that we don’t need reservation at all,” he says.
AVP fought from two more seats in the 2014 elections (Kota and Nagaur in Rajasthan), but lost. This time, the party is also contesting from all seven seats in Delhi, according to Gaur.
Gaur will be contesting against BJP’s Krishan Pal Gurjar, a Union minister of state, and three-time MP Avtar Singh Bhadana of the Congress. Faridabad is the only seat the party is contesting from in Haryana. As for Gaur, he fought his first electoral battle in 2007, for the municipal corporation elections of Ballabgarh.
A businessman and father of two, the aspiring lawmaker earned about Rs 4.3 lakh in the 2018-19 fiscal and owns assets worth around Rs 1.5 crore, but he is not daunted by the possibility of wasting Rs 25,000 as deposit if he loses the election again. “I will continue to contest till the end of my life,” he says. “Right now, I have been seeking donations from my supporters.”
Gaur is also promising to work towards abolishing the SC/ST (Atrocities) Act. Interestingly, he has been charged under the SC/ST Act in a case registered at Parliament Street police station in New Delhi in August last year for promoting enmity between communities. However, according to Gaur, he has been booked over a protest during which some allegedly burnt copies of the Constitution. “I have been made an accused, as I had taken permission for the agitation,” he says. “I had nothing to do with the burning of the Constitution or anything else.” Asked if he plans to raise any other issue, Gaur says development: “A lot needs to be done.”