Udit Raj revolts, Lekhi retained; Maken picked for New Delhi
With the Congress announcing its list of six candidates for the general elections on Monday, the North-East Delhi seat appears to be set for a humdinger of contest between Delhi Congress president and three-term Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and Delhi BJP president and the sitting Member for Parliament (MP) Manoj Tiwari.
The Congress has fielded former Union Minister Ajay Maken from New Delhi seat, Delhi Congress working president Rajesh Lilothia from North west seat, Mahabal Mishra from West Delhi, five-term Lok Sabha MP JP Agarwal from Chandni Chowk and former Delhi Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely from the East Delhi constituency.
Meanwhile, the BJP has decided to field sitting MP Meenakshi Lekhi from the New Delhi seat and former cricketer Gautam Gambhir from the East Delhi, where Atishi is fighting on AAP ticket.
The BJP did not declare the name of its candidate for the North West constituency. Sitting MP Udit Raj has raised the banner of revolt as he feels that the party has not been fair to him. Former Indian Revenue Service (IRS) officer Udit Raj posted a series of tweets on Monday to express his concern as the BJP has not declared his candidature.
Udit held a Press conference later in the evening to air his grievance and asked the party leadership to come clean on his nomination from the North West Lok Sabha seat. He took the names of senior party leaders, including BJP president Amit Shah and Home Minister Rajnath Singh, and claimed that he was promised re-nomination.
Sources said the BJP may field popular Punjabi singer Hans Raj Hans from the North west seat and announcement to this regard is likely to be made by Tuesday morning as both the party president and the Prime Minister were not in the national Capital.
Sheila, who took over from Maken as the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC) president earlier this year, was last a Member of Parliament from 1984-89 from Kannauj. Sheila had unsuccessfully contested from East Delhi constituency in 1998. Again in 2013 Assembly polls, she lost to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal from Gole Market Assembly seat. Since then she has not contested any election.
Sheila will take on BJP’s sitting MP Manoj Tiwari and Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Dilip Pandey. “We will begin campaigning soon by highlighting achievements of Congress Governments in Delhi as well as at the Centre,” Dikshit said after her name was declared as a candidate from North East Delhi. She also said her party was prepared to face the challenge of a triangular contest in Delhi.
Interestingly, senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal has not been named from the Chandni Chowk seat from which he has been fighting since 2004. After two terms, Sibal had lost to Union Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan in 2014. In fact he came third with journalist turned politician Ashutosh being second.
This time, Congress party has fielded Agarwal, who had also won from North East seat in 2009 and will take on Vardhan of the BJP and Pankaj Gupta of the AAP.
In a late night development, the Congress announced to field boxer Vijender Singh from South Delhi seat.
Chandni Chowk battle is likely to generate a lot of heat as the three main candidates are from the Baniya (traders community). Agarwal has been an old war horse had won from this seat four times. He is expected to put up a stiff contest to Vardhan. However, the arithmetic appears to have tilted towards the BJP as Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) had recently announced to back the BJP candidates after Prime Minister Narendra Modi held an open session with the traders’ community at Delhi’s Talkatora stadium.
Another interesting pick by the Congress is former DPCC president Lovely from East Delhi where he will take on AAP’s Atishi. Lovely had left Congress to join BJP but came back to the party fold after he met the Congress president in 2018.This will be Lovely’s first parliamentary polls contest.
Meanwhile, the Congress is yet to announce its candidate for the South Delhi seat. In the 2014 national election, the BJP won all seven seats in Delhi.
Talks for an alliance between the Congress and AAP broke down over AAP’s insistence that the grand old party should agree to share seats in Haryana, Chandigarh and Punjab apart from Delhi. The AAP has already named its seven candidates in the national Capital and six of its candidates filed their nominations on Monday for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in Delhi.
The six candidates who filed their papers are Chandni Chowk candidate Pankaj Gupta, East Delhi candidate Atishi, North West Delhi candidate Gugan Singh, South Delhi candidate Raghav Chadha, North East Delhi candidate Dilip Pandey and New Delhi candidate Brijesh Goyal.
The BJP on Sunday fielded its four sitting MPs from Delhi - Harsh Vardhan from Chandni Chowk, Manoj Tiwari from North-east Delhi, Parvesh Verma from West Delhi and Ramesh Bidhuri from South Delhi.
However, Congress has not announced its candidate from South Delhi constituency. Congress sources said Olympic boxer Vijender Singh is the front runner and can be fielded from South Delhi seat. Vijender met the Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Monday afternoon. The other claimants to this seat are the former MP Ramesh Kumar and former Delhi Speaker Dr Yoganand Shastri, both Jat leaders.
Sources said Sheila was backing Sushil Kumar for West Delhi seat but Mahabal Mishra pipped him to the post. Secondly, Sushil was not willing to resign from his Government job, which is pre-requisite to contest elections.
Sheila has vetoed against Ramesh Kumar, the younger brother of the 1984 riots convict Sajjan Kumar as his candidature would invite negative publicity to the party and also it would resonate in the neighbouring Punjab. Congress is not taking any chances in an effort to revive its fortunes in the national Capital in the three cornered high voltage contest for the seven Lok Sabha seats. “We have drawn our campaign chart and issues to be presented before the voters as Delhi holds significance in the national polls”, said a senior Congress leader.
