The Bharatiya Janata Party is yet to announce candidates for the upcoming Delhi Assembly polls even though its main rival, the Aam Aadmi Party, has declared candidates for all the 70 constituencies and the Congress has announced nearly one-third of that figure.
Preparations for Mr. Modi’s rally on Saturday and the fact that the election date has not been announced are reasons cited by senior BJP leaders for delay in deliberating on candidate selection. This delay is however keeping with the previous elections, the 2013 Delhi Assembly polls and the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, where the party left it to a month before poll date to announce candidates.
Delay in declaring the candidates ahead of the Delhi Assembly polls in 2013 was seen by many party workers as the reason the BJP failed to gain a clear majority and form a government. Ahead of the Lok Sabha polls last year, the Central leadership assured the Delhi unit that the list of candidates will be declared two days before the nominations were to be filed for the April 10 polls but the list was further delayed.
With AAP convenor Arvind Kejriwal once again going in for the big fight from the New Delhi Assembly constituency, the BJP is banking heavily on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Union Government’s work in the last six months to ask for support. The party is steering clear of announcing a Chief Ministerial candidate.
Sources in the BJP say that of the 70 candidates, several old hands of the State unit of the party may be repeated from the list that was declared in 2013. “The party will acknowledge those who put up a good fight against AAP candidates and will consider fielding them again,” said a senior BJP leader. In about 12 Assembly constituencies, the BJP lost with close margins to AAP. Meanwhile, the AAP has begun targeted constituency-wise campaigning with prominent posters of the local candidates, besides reaching out to voters with aggressive radio spots and online campaign.
In the Greater Kailash constituency where President Pranab Mukherjee’s daughter Sharmishta is tipped to be contesting on Congress ticket, the AAP’s former Transport Minister Saurabh Bharadwaj is seen on posters taking credit for the CCTV cameras. The BJP’s posters show New Delhi MP Meenakshi Lekhi and local leaders wishing people for festivals gone by.
