In an apparent attempt to pacify its disgruntled leader Shazia Ilmi, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday fielded her as party’s candidate from the Ghaziabad parliamentary constituency.
Shazia, who had made public her reluctance to contest against Congress president Sonia Gandhi from Raebareli, was keen on contesting from any of the seven seats in Delhi or some ‘preferred’ seats in Uttar Pradesh. However, after dissent within the party came to fore, Shazia had said she would ‘not contest’ the lok Sabha polls. However, the party announced her candidature in the sixth list of candidates announced on Saturday.
Shazia will be contesting against Congress candidate Raj Babbar while the BJP is yet to declare its candidate from the seat. A close aide of Shazia said she was happy over the party’s decision even as she had expressed her willingness to contest from Delhi.
Shazia had on Tuesday tweeted that she was unwilling to contest from Raebareli indicating that she was made a scapegoat. This had embarrassed the AAP leaders who had thrown an open challenge to the Congress president and her son Rahul Gandhi. The AAP has fielded another prominent leader Kumar Vishwas against Rahul Gandhi from Amethi in Uttar Pradesh. This also assumed significance as a number of AAP leaders returned the party tickets expressing their disinterest in contesting the polls and citing lack of support from the party workers on the ground level. While Mallika Sarabhai and Savita Bhatti returned the party ticket, a disgruntled Ashok Aggarwal in Delhi quit the party.
Meanwhile, the AAP released its sixth list of candidates for 55 lok Sabha seats. Alleged Maoist conduit Soni Sori will be the Aam Aadmi Party candidate from Bastar in Chhattisgarh. The list includes seats in 13 States and three Union Territories. The party declared candidates for North-Eastern states of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Manipur — one each for the four States — two each in Kerala and Goa, one each in Union Territories of Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Andaman and Nicobar Islands, three each in Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh (10), Odisha (10), Rajasthan (5), Madhya Pradesh (7), Maharashtra (6). With this list, the total number of candidates declared by the AAP so far has gone up to 242.