Despite Assembly poll wallop, party renominates five sitting MPs
The Congress has announced its much-awaited list of candidates for seven Parliamentary seats in Delhi on Tuesday. Despite its drubbing in the Assembly election in the Capital, the Congress has shown faith in its sitting MPs by repeating five of them. It, however did not announced the names of two Parliamentary seats — South Delhi and West Delhi.
Political experts are baffled that two sitting MPs — Mahabal Mishra from West and Ramesh Kumar from South Delhi — have been asked to wait. Both the BJP and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have already announced their candidates for all the seven seats in Delhi. According to party insiders, several leaders were not keen to contest this time due the Arvind Kejriwal factor, who had won 28 seats in the Assembly polls. The interesting fact is that development is not the issue in the election and it is being contested on personalities. Sitting MP and Congress spokesperson Ajay Maken and Jai Prakash Aggarwal have got renomination under ‘primaries project’ from New Delhi lok Sabha seat and North East Delhi lok Sabha seat respectively. Maken has been winning the New Delhi lok Sabha seat since 2004 but emergence of the AAP, which has obtained a maximum number of votes from 10 Assembly seats in New Delhi area and Narendra Modi wave, would make him tough to retain the seat this time. Maken had defeated the BJP candidate Vijay Goel in 2009. Maken had managed to get 4,55,783 votes while the BJP candidate managed to get only 2,67,994 votes. The BJP has given ticket to its national spokesperson Meenakshi lekhi while the AAP has fielded journalist Ashish Khetan.
Former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit’s son and sitting MP Sandeep Dikshit will contest from East Delhi lok Sabha seat. The BJP has fielded Mahesh Giri from here while AAP has given ticket to Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson Rajmohan Gandhi in East Delhi. Dikshit had won the East Delhi twice. In the last lok Sabha election, he had defeated BJP candidate and cricketer Chetan Chauhan. Dikshit had got 5,17,992 votes while Chauhan obtained 2,76,941 votes.
Union Minister Kapil Sibal will contest from Chandni Chowk seat. The AAP has fielded journalist-turned-politician Ashutosh Gupta while BJP candidate is its
Dr Harsh Vardhan. Sibal has won the Chandni Chowk seat twice. He has defeated the BJP candidate Vijender Gupta in the last lok Sabha election. Sibal had got 4,65,674 votes while Gupta had obtained 2,64,976 votes. Sibal would have to face tough fight this time in view of anti-Congress wave in the Capital.
From North East seat, the Congress has reposed faith in Jai Prakash Aggarwal. Aggarwal had won the seat by defeating the BJP candidate Bl ‘Prem’ Sharma in the last election. He had obtained 58.99 per cent votes while Prem got only 33.69 per cent votes in 2009. Aggarwal has been renominated under ‘primaries project’. The BJP has nominated Bhojpuri actor and singer Manoj Tiwari while the AAP has fielded Prof Anand Kumar. Both Kumar and Tiwari are from Bihar.
The Congress has given ticket to sitting MP and Union Minister Krishna Tirath from North West lok Sabha seat against the BJP candidate Udit Raj and the AAP’s candidate Rakhi Birla. Tirath had won the seat in 2009. She had won 57.16 per cent votes while the BJP had got 35.53 per cent votes.