The grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and noted academician Rajmohan Gandhi will contest East Delhi lok Sabha seat on the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) ticket.
The seat dominated by significant number of Poorvanchalis voters is presently represented by son of former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit — Sandeep Dikshit. Gandhi had recently joined the party. Declaration of his candidature was made on Thursday along with 29 other party nominees from different constituencies in the second list. The much-awaited list also features prominent names, including former BJP MP Rajan Sushant who has been given ticket from Kangra of Himachal Pradesh. Besides one each from Delhi, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Uttarakhand and Jammu & Kashmir, the list has three names from Rajasthan, five from Haryana, 10 from Maharashtra and six from Madhya Pradesh.
Naveen Jaihind has been pitched against Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda’s son Deepender Singh Hooda from the Rohtak constituency. Interestingly, considered as the stronghold of Congress in Sangli, Maharashtra, advocate Samina Khan is the first Muslim who has been given the AAP ticket to contest the lok Sabha elections from Sangli.
The 78-year-old Gandhi had earlier contested the lok Sabha election against former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi from Amethi in 1989 but was defeated by him. According to the AAP leader, the party is announcing the candidature for upcoming lok Sabha elections after going through the internal survey report conducted by the party workers in every constituency. “Before announcing the name of any candidate, we are scanning the profile of the candidate and checking their background and we have rejected several people after their names surfaced in some wrong activity,” a senior AAP party leader said, adding even after the announcement of candidate names, if the party were to find out a contestant involvement in any immoral activity, his/her name would be cancelled with immediate effect. The AAP has given ticket to the RTI activist of Jammu & Kashmir, Raja Muzaffar Bhat from Srinagar, which is represented by Union Minister Farooq Abdullah. Actor-theatre personality Nandu Madhav will contest from Beed, a seat currently represented by senior BJP leader Gopinath Munde. “In Maharashtra, social activist lalit Babar will contest from Solapur, a seat currently held by Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde. Prashant Mishra, a software consultant, will contest against Union Minister and NCP MP Praful Patel from Bhandara-Gondiya,” he added.
