The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is likely to announce its candidates for the Delhi Assembly polls on Monday (today). The party’s central election committee (CEC) will meet on Monday to decide on the final candidates, BJP leaders said on Sunday.
With AAP and the Congress having declared their candidates for all the 70 constituencies, the BJP remains the lone big player yet to reveal its cards.
Sources said the list could be released by Monday evening, following which the candidates will have two days to file their nominations. January 21 is the last date to file nomination papers, and January 24 the deadline for withdrawal. Delhi goes to polls on February 7, with results to be declared on February 10.
“The CEC meeting of the BJP is scheduled for Monday. The list is likely to be released by evening,” a senior BJP leader said.
It will be interesting to see if BJP fields new entrant Kiran Bedi against Arvind Kejriwal from New Delhi, to reclaim which the Congress has fielded Kiran Walia. Speculation is rife that the two high-profile defectorentrants, Shazia Ilmi and Vinod Kumar Binny, could be fielded to take on leaders of their former party AAP.
Sources in the BJP said the party could repeat all its 2013 victors, as also the candidates who lost the previous election by a narrow margin.
The party could also give fair representation to incumbent councillors of the three BJP-led municipal corporations. This includes Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay and general secretaries Ashish Sood and Rekha Gupta, who are currently the municipal councillors from Malviya nagar, Janakpuri and Pitampura, respectively.
Even if the BJP declares its candidates on Monday, they will be left with only 15 days for campaigning. The campaigning for the Assembly polls will end on February 5.
Mail Today had earlier reported that the delay in ticket distribution was giving jitters to the Delhi BJP leaders, who feared that AAP and Congress candidates might steal a march over them.
