AAP releases 1st list of 11 candidates for Delhi polls | India News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: In an unusual move, Aam Aadmi Party on Thursday announced its first list of 11 candidates for the Delhi assembly elections, which are likely to be held in Feb next year.
The capital is due to elect 70 members of the assembly and AAP has been the first off the block. The party’s Delhi, convener Gopal Rai, said the names had been declared early because eight of the 11 constituencies are not held by the party. Six are currently held by BJP.
Party sources said they wanted to give the candidates a head start since on most of these seats, AAP had either lost or its candidates had switched sides. This move is also intended to retain those who had joined recently because they could be lured back to their former parties before the elections.
Of the 11, six candidates had switched to AAP from BJP or Congress. The list includes Brahm Singh Tanwar, Anil Jha and BB Tyagi, who left BJP, and Chaudhry Zubair Ahmad, Veer Dhingan and Sumesh Shokeen, who quit Congress.
“The party has also given a message to members of other parties who are aspiring for tickets and have a good chance of winning,” they said.

The names were announced after a meeting of AAP’s political affairs committee, headed by national convenor Arvind Kejriwal. Rai said the tickets were given based strictly on performance, surveys and public opinion, as promised by Kejriwal.
The party has fielded Brahm Singh Tanwar from Chhatarpur, Anil Jha from Kirari and BB Tyagi from Laxmi Nagar. Choudhary Zubair Ahmed has been fielded from Seelampur while ex-MLAs Veer Singh Dhingan and Somesh Shokeen have been given tickets from Seemapuri and Matiala, respectively.
Former AAP MLAs Sarita Singh (Rohtas Nagar), Ram Singh Netaji (Badarpur), Gaurav Sharma (Ghonda), Manoj Tyagi (Karawal Nagar) and Deepak Singhal (Vishwas Nagar) are the other candidates whose names figure in the first list. Sarita Singh and Ram Singh Netaji had lost in the 2020 Assembly polls and have been repeated.
The sitting AAP MLAs who have been denied tickets from their respective seats include Rituraj Jha from Kirari, Gulab Singh Yadav from Matiala and Abdul Rahman from Seelampur. Both Jha and Gulab Singh are two-term MLAs.
AAP MLA from Chhatarpur Kartar Singh Tanwar had quit the party and joined BJP. He was disqualified as an MLA by the Speaker. Rajender Pal Gautam, AAP MLA from Seemapuri, had resigned from the membership of the assembly and party to join Congress.
Unlike the last two elections when AAP won 67 (2015) and 62 seats (2020) out of 70, this time, party functionaries privately acknowledge, anti-incumbency poses a hurdle. BJP, too, has been aggressively targeting AAP over issues like Yamuna cleaning, condition of roads and renovation of the chief minister’s residence.
Commenting on the development, Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said that while all political parties have the freedom to field candidates as per their political strategy, the manner in which AAP had released its first list sends a clear message that Arvind Kejriwal is in despair. “The absence of any established leader in the party’s first list indicates that the AAP leadership has lost confidence. It is now evident that the party is worried about anti-incumbency,” he said.
Sachdeva said it appears that the list was hastily released by Kejriwal to divert public attention from questions about his “luxurious bungalow”. Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee president Devender Yadav said that Kejriwal’s desperation is clearly evident as three of the candidates are Congress discards and tickets have been given to them by replacing sitting AAP MLAs.