The Aam Aadmi Party on Tuesday released its full list of 70 candidates for the Delhi Assembly elections due on February 8.
All seven AAP Ministers got party tickets and three of its 2019 Delhi Lok Sabha election candidates — Atishi, Dilip Pandey, and Raghav Chadha — made it to the list. Also, leaders who joined the party in the last one week — Ram Singh Netaji, Vinay Mishra and Shoaib Iqbal — got tickets.
The party has announced 24 new faces while 15 sitting MLAs have been dropped.
The other two parties — the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party — have not yet announced their candidates for the elections.
“Best wishes to all. Don’t be complacent. Work v hard. People have lot of faith in AAP and u. God bless [sic],” AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal said in a tweet.
46 MLAs retained
Of the existing 61 MLAs, 46 have made it to the list and the party has fielded eight women candidates, compared with six in 2015, said senior AAP leader Manish Sisodia.
In the 2015 Assembly elections, AAP had swept 67 of the 70 seats in Delhi. Later, the BJP won the Rajouri Garden bypoll after AAP legislator Jarnail Singh vacated the seat to contest the Punjab Assembly elections in 2017.
In 2019, after the Lok Sabha election, five AAP MLAs were disqualified by Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goel under the anti-defection law.
AAP is also expected to come out with its election manifesto later this week.
The last date for filing of nominations is January 21 while January 24 is the last date for withdrawal of candidature.
The elections results will be out on February 11.
