New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday announced its final list of eight candidates for the Delhi Assembly polls, thus completing the process of naming its nominees for all 70 seats.
In the list declared today, AAP has named Sarita Singh, president of its students' wing -- Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti -- from Rohtash Nagar while Haji Yunus, an office bearer of the party's minority wing, has been given the ticket from Mustafabad. AAP got a shot in the arm after former BJP councillor Saurabh Bharadwaj joined the party and was fielded from Wazirpur.
Bharadwaj's move would come as a jolt to the saffron party as his son Ashok is the district office bearer of BJP while daughter-in-law Poonam is a sitting councillor. He is also known to wield clout in Wazirpur where 80 per cent of the people reside in JJ clusters.
Pramila Tokas, an Independent councillor, has been given the ticket from RK Puram, while Pankaj Puskhar, the campaign manager for Timarpur constituency, has been nominated to contest the same seat, replacing its former legislator Harish Khanna.
In Mehrauli, the party has given the ticket to a prominent local Jat leader, Chaudhary Goverdhan Singh, while AAP volunteers Pawan Sharma and Ajay Dutt have been fielded from Adarsh Nagar and Amebdkar Nagar, respectively.
With this, AAP has repeated 21 of its former legislators and given chance to 35 fresh faces. Trying to strike a balance, the party has also fielded six women candidates and given tickets to four Sikh and five Muslim faces. It has also fielded all its former ministers who were part of the Arvind Kejriwal government during AAP's short stint in power in Delhi.
The party also has a blend of candidates from different walks of life -- from former Apple executive Adarsh Shastri to Bandana Kumari, a housewife. Almost all the chiefs of its affiliated organisations have bagged tickets. Kumari, the president of AAP's women's wing is contesting from Shalimar Bagh while Manoj Kumar, head of the party's Scheduled Caste cell will contest from Kondli.
Jarnail Singh, its youth wing chief is the AAP candidate from Tilak Nagar while Praveen Kumar, who is overall in-charge of the affiliated wings, is contesting from Jangpura.
Ending speculation that he would contest against the BJP's chief ministerial candidate, AAP convener Kejriwal has this time opted to contest from his New Delhi Assembly seat, where he had trounced former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dixit by over 22,000 votes in the last Assembly polls. Five of AAP's Lok Sabha candidates, including Kejriwal, Shastri, Rakhi Birla, Jarnail Singh and Devendra Sehrawat will contest the Assembly polls.
More importantly, with the success of AAP in the last Assembly polls, many people who were earlier with rival parties have been given tickets this time and are contesting for AAP. For instance, Sahi Ram Pehelwan, who was earlier with BSP and lost in Assembly elections has been given the ticket from Tughlakabad while former deputy speaker of Delhi Assembly, Fateh Singh, who switched over from BJP, will contest on an AAP ticket from Gokulpuri.
At the same time, AAP has put faith in volunteers associated with it since the India Against Corruption days and who are currently office bearers in the party. AAP has also taken special care in selecting candidates from rural seats, where the party suffered the most in the last Assembly polls.
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