New Delhi:
Former Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia will contest the upcoming Assembly elections from Jangpura and civil service teacher Avadh Ojha is the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate from East Delhi's Patparganj, currently held by Mr Sisodia.
AAP today released its second list of 20 candidates for the Delhi Assembly elections, which will be held early next year. Last month it published a list of names of eleven candidates. The ruling party has yet to announce candidates for 39 seats in the 70-member General Assembly.
The Jangpura seat has been held by AAP since 2013, when former Delhi Assembly Speaker Maninder Singh Dhir won it. When Mr Dhir switched to the BJP, AAP fielded Praveen Kumar, who won the seat in the 2015 and 2020 polls. This time, the party has chosen Mr Sisodia's seat. The former deputy prime minister, who was arrested in a money laundering case related to Delhi's now abolished liquor policy, has been released on bail. He has denied the allegations and said he would only join the government after the “people's court” ruling.
Thanking Mr Kejriwal and AAP for the opportunity to contest from Jangpura, Mr Sisodia said Patparganj is the “heart of the education revolution in Delhi”. “When Avadh Ojha joined the party, I felt Patparganj would be the best place for a teacher,” he said, adding that he was happy to “hand over the responsibility”. “I am now ready to do in Jangpura what I did for education and development in Patparganj. From Patparganj to Jangpura, my promise is firm: make Delhi better,” he wrote on X.
Praveen Kumar, the current Jangpura MLA, has been accommodated in the Janakpuri seat.
For Avadh Ojha, who joined the AAP earlier this month, Patparganj is a safe place. The East Delhi constituency is seen as an AAP stronghold represented by Mr Sisodia since 2013.
Significantly, none of the sitting MLAs in these twenty seats have been replicated this time. AAP is pushing hard for a fourth term and the move to change the sitting MLAs appears to be aimed at countering anti-incumbency or complaints against a specific legislator in his/her constituency.
Delhi BJP chief Virendraa Sachdeva said they have received information that many sitting AAP MLAs do not want to contest the polls as people have decided to vote for change. “(Former) Deputy Prime Minister (Sisodia) has fled, imagine the fear. Arvind Kejriwal and Atishi will also flee,” he said. The names of Mr Kejriwal, who represents New Delhi, and Atishi, Chief Minister and MLA from Kalkaji, are not in the two lists of AAP.
Mr. Sachdeva said that Mr. Kejriwal is speaking out against dynasty politics. “Yet two tickets, for Chandni Chowk and Krishna Nagar, were given to relatives (members of sitting MLAs).”
