The nomination process for seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi is all set to begin on Monday after the notification of the sixth phase of polls for May 25 . The electoral battle in Delhi is going to be a direct fight between BJP and the alliance of AAP and Congress. Officials said all arrangements have been made at the offices of the returning officers to accept the applications.
The nominations can be filed between 11am and 3pm till May 6 (Saturday and Sunday will remain non-working days), the documents will be scrutinised on May 7 and the last date to withdraw the candidature is May 9. While polling will take place on May 25, the votes will be count on June 4. As on April 20, a total of 1.5 crore voters, including 81.6 lakh men, 69.4 lakh women and 1,215 belonging to third gender – will be eligible to cast their votes at nearly13,000 polling booths across the city.
The 2019 Lok Sabha polls witnessed 347 people filing their nominations but only 164 were left in the fray after scrutiny of documents and withdrawal of candidature. In 2014, 207 filed nominations and 150 eventually contested. Each candidate will also have to deposit a security deposit of Rs 25,000, which is Rs 12,500 for those belonging to the scheduled caste and scheduled tribes.
The BJP has fielded Harsh Malhotra from East Delhi, Manoj Tiwari from North East Delhi, Praveen Khandelwal from Chandni Chowk, Ramvir Singh Bidhuri from South Delhi, Yogendra Chandolia from North West Delhi, Bansuri Swaraj from New Delhi and Kamaljeet Sahrawat from West Delhi.
AAP has fielded Kuldeep Kumar (East Delhi), SahiramPehalwan (South Delhi), Mahabal Mishra (West Delhi) andSomnath Bharti (New Delhi). The Congress has given ticket to seasoned politician Jai Prakash Agarwal from Chandni Chowk, Udit Raj from North West Seat and Kanhaiya Kumar from North East seat. There is a huge ressntment among the Congress workers and workers for giving tickets to Kanhaiya Kumar and Udit Raj.Even in his resignation letter to Mallikarjun Kharge, Arvinder Singh Lovely has said that tickets were given to two people who are total strangers to the Delhi Congress and party policies while referring to the candidature of Kanhaiya Kumar from Northeast Delhi and Udit Raj from Northwest Delhi constituencies.
Lovely also criticised Kanhaiya Kumar for heaping praise on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, who is behind bars in a money laundering case. When asked about the development, Kumar said, “I don’t know. I don’t have any information. Let me gather the information from the party and then I will tell you.”
Lovely accused Udit Raj of making “anti-party” statements in the press and disrespecting party workers. He claimed Raj had written several letters to him asking him to suspend various generational local party leaders.
