NEW DELHI: Sounding the bugle for the parliamentary elections, the Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday announced candidates for six Lok Sabha seats in Delhi, but there was suspense over the remaining seat, West Delhi, for which no contestant was named.
In October last year, when the party’s campaign was being planned, Rajpal Solanki, who was given charge of West Delhi, resigned citing ill health. Since then there has been speculation that AAP is planning to field a star campaigner from outside the party in West Delhi.
Raghav Chadha in South Delhi and Atishi in East Delhi have been campaigning for the party for the past few months.
“I have spent the better part of the last year walking the streets of South Delhi as prabhari, there is a huge potential for development that has remained untapped due to political neglect. Chronic issues like roads, traffic remained unaddressed by MPs and MLAs for decades until AAP came to power. A lot of work has been done. The remaining will be done on war footing once AAP is in Lok Sabha too,” said Chadha, the candidate from South Delhi.
Some political pundits state that the party might field a sitting MLA or MCD councillor from the area, but that is unlikely as the Delhi state incharge and development minister, Gopal Rai, has said on many occasions that no MLA or councillor will be given the ticket for the Lok Sabha polls.
In the last election, AAP had fielded journalist-turned-politician Jarnail Singh in West Delhi, and he had lost to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Pravesh Verma.
The party, which plans to contest all Lok Sabha seats in Delhi, Punjab and Haryana, has held several public meetings featuring Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
With no alliance in sight, Kejriwal, who is worried about division of anti-BJP votes due to a three-cornered fight, plans to attack the state governments in Haryana and Punjab on the basis of the work done by his government in Delhi.
The AAP, which has asked people to vote for anyone who is in a position to overthrow the BJP and save the country from “two threats to democracy”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah, plans to accelerate its campaign around “denial” of full statehood to Delhi.
Keeping in mind that AAP and the Congress have the same voter base in many constituencies, Kejriwal is also constantly attacking Delhi Congress chief Sheila Dikshit for not doing enough during her three terms as chief minister.
