The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday announced its list of 70 candidates for the Delhi assembly polls. The elections will be held on February 8.
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will contest from the New Delhi assembly seat, while his deputy Manish Sisodia from the Patparganj assembly seat.
Dilip Pandey, Atishi and Raghav Chadha, who unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, will also contest the assembly elections. Pandey will contest from Timarpur, Atishi from Kalkaji and Chadha from Rajendra Nagar, the party's Political Affairs Committee said.
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According to media reports, sitting MLAs will contest on 46 seats while 15 legislators have been dropped. There are only eight women candidates among the 70. "As many as 46 sitting MLAs have been given tickets, 15 sitting MLAs have been replaced. While six women were given tickets by AAP last time, we have now given tickets to eight," news agency ANI quoted Sisodia as saying.
The sitting MLAs denied tickets also include Pankaj Pushkar (Timar Pur), Ram Chander (Bawana),Sukhbir Dalal (Mundka), Hazari Lal Chauhan (Patel Nagar), Vijender Garg (Rajendra Nagar), Avtar Singh (Kalkaji), N D Sharma (Badarpur), Raju Dhingan (Trilokpuri), Manoj Kumar (Kondli), Choudhary Fateh Singh(Gokulpur) and Asim Ahmed Khan (Matia Mahal).
They were replaced by Dilip Pandey (Timarpur), Jai Bhagwan Upkar (Bawana), Dharampal Lakada (Mundka), Raj Kumar Anand (Patel Nagar), Raj Kumari Dhillo (Hari Nagar), Vinay Kumar Singh (Dwarka), Virender Singh Kadyan (Delhi Cantt), Raghav Chadha (Rajendra Nagar), Ram Singh Netaji (Badarpur), Rohit Kumar Mehroliya (Trilokpuri), Kuldeep Kumar (Kondli), Abdul Rahman (Seelampur), Surendra Kumar (Gokalpur) and Shoaib Iqbal (Matia Mahal).
The AAP, which had a landslide victory in the 2015 polls, is up against the BJP which had just three seats. The saffron party is expected to come up with its list of candidates later this month while the Congress may release its list only after the BJP.
Soon after the announcement, Kejriwal tweeted, "Best wishes to all. Don't be complacent. Work v hard. People have lot of faith in AAP and u. God bless."
The counting of votes will take place on February 11.
(With PTI inputs)
