New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) announced Tuesday its list of 70 candidates for the February 8 Delhi Assembly polls, with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal contesting again from New Delhi seat and his deputy Manish Sisodia from Patparganj seat.
The party has dropped 15 sitting MLAs and given ticket to a total of 24 new faces, including Atishi, Dilip Pandey and Raghav Chadha who unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The AAP has also fielded five leaders who jumped ship from the Congress, including five-time MLA Shoaib Iqbal who will fight from Matia Mahal. He is among the four Muslim candidates named by the party.
The others — Amanatullah Khan from Okhla, Haji Yunus from Mustafabad and Imran Hussain from Ballimaran – are sitting MLAs.
There are eight women candidates. Besides Kejriwal and his deputy, all the five other Delhi government ministers also figure in the list, released by the AAP’s Political Affairs Committee on the first day of the nomination process.
The AAP’s main rivals – the BJP and Congress – are yet to name any candidate for the polls.
Oxford-educated Atishi, who is among the AAP’s prominent faces and had lost to Gautam Gambhir in East Delhi Lok Sabha seat, will be contesting from Kalkaji while Chadha has been fielded from Rajendra Nagar and Pandey from Timarpur.
Sisodia said the AAP’s PAC has approved the names of candidates for all 70 seats for the Delhi Assembly elections.
“The existing MLAs will contest elections on 46 seats. There will be new faces in place of 15 existing MLAs and nine vacant seats. There are eight women among them. In 2015, there were six women,” Sisodia said.
Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goyal will be contesting from Shahdara and Deputy Speaker Rakhi Birla will be contesting from Mangol Puri.
A senior party leader said the candidates have been selected after close scrutiny and several surveys. “The sitting MLAs whose performance was not up to the mark have been replaced with more deserving candidates,” he said.
Kejriwal gave best wishes to the candidates and advised them not to be complacent. “Work very hard. People have lot of faith in AAP and you. God bless,” Kejriwal said in a tweet.
The major omissions included party’s chief whip in the Assembly Jagdeep Singh (Hari Nagar), Surender ‘Commando (Delhi Cantt) and Haji Ishraq Khan (Seelampur).
The AAP had won 67 out of 70 seats in the last assembly election. The BJP had bagged three seats and later won a by-poll, while the Congress had failed to open its account.
Agencies
