The central leadership of BJP wants to field eminent poet and former member of Aap Aadmi Party (AAP)'s Political Affairs Committee (PAC) Kumar Vishwas against Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal from the high profile New Delhi Assembly seat. Sources said Kumar's candidature was discussed during the meeting chaired by the BJP national president Amit Shah on Monday.
Speaking to The Pioneer, party sources confirmed that Kumar is the most suitable candidate against Kejriwal. When asked why Vishwas, a BJP leader explained that the party needs a popular face to contest Assembly elections and party wants to corner Kejriwal in his own den.
Shah, along with Union Ministers Prakash Javadekar, Nityanand Rai, and senior party leader Shaym Jaju and Tarun Chugh, met and shortlisted 200 names for MLAs. The party has zeroed on 40 names who may be given the party ticket. BJP is actively considering giving ticket to municipal councillors, said a BJP leader privy to candidate selection process.
BJP leadership is also holding parleys with Siromani Akali Dal (SAD) about seat sharing. The SAD was given four seats in both 2013 and 2015 assembly polls. The party had won three seats in 2013 and lost all four in 2015. This time party may be given Rajouri Garden, currently held by SAD leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa. The other three seats could be Kalkaji, Shahdara and Hari Nagar, they said.
The party is also likely to repeat its three MLAs in the outgoing Assembly, Vijender Gupta from Rohini, OP Sharma from Vishwas Nagar and Jagdish Pradhan from Mustafabad. Ashish Sood from Jankapuri and former Delhi BJP President Satish Upadhyay are set to contest from Malviya Nagar seat as their names have been finalised, they added.
The nomination process for 70 seats in Delhi Assembly elections will begin on Tuesday. The last date for of filing nomination papers is January 21 and voting will be held on February 8. Meanwhile hitting out at ruling regime AAP, Member of Parliament (MP) from New Delhi constituency accused Kejriwal government for playing with the health of Delhi people by supplying polluted water.
Meanwhile BJP MP from New Delhi Meenkashi Lekhi said attacked Arvind Kejriwal and said that AAP has become 'Akela' Aam Party from Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Citing the example of AAP former leaders - Admiral Ram Das, Yogender Yadav, Prashant Bhushan, Aashutosh, Ashish Khetan, Dr. Kumar Vishwash, Prof. Anand Kumar, Smt. Kiran Bedi, Anjali Damania, Shazia Ilmi, Devender Sehrawat, Kapil Mishra, Anil Bajpai, Ashok Kumar, S.S. Dhir, Gugan Singh, Ved Prakash, Ashwini Upadhyay, Lekhi said that AAP played the politics of falsehood and played with the sentiments of people.
Lekhi said that they had an important role in founding the party but soon after Kejriwal took over as the Chief Minister, many of the leaders were either left or were expelled from the party.
