NEW DELHI: Days after announcing candidates for all 70 assembly constituencies for the upcoming Delhi Assembly polls, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday announced one change. The party has replaced its Mehrauli candidate Naresh Yadav, convicted last month in the Quran desecration case, with Mahender Choudhary.
Yadav, the sitting MLA from Mehrauli, was convicted by a Punjab court with two-year sentence in the 2016 Quran desecration case.
AAP national general secretary (organisation) Sandeep Pathak issued the party’s fifth list and named Choudhary as the candidate from Mehrauli seat.
Yadav said in a post on X that he met AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal to inform him about his decision not to contest the polls till he is acquitted by the court in the case against him. Yadav said that he joined the AAP impressed by Kejriwal’s honesty and received a lot from the party.
On June 24, 2016, torn pages of the Quran were found scattered on a road in Malerkotla in Punjab. This led to violence and the burning of vehicles by
an angry mob. Four persons, including Yadav, were arrested in the case. Yadav was acquitted in the sacrilege case in March 2021 by a lower court. However, his acquittal was challenged by the complainant in the case.