With only one day remaining for the filing of nominations for the upcoming Municipal elections in the national Capital, the Bharatiya Janata Party and Congress are yet to show all of their cards.
The two major parties have not yet announced all of the candidates who would represent them in Delhi's wards in the MCD elections, scheduled for 23 April, giving hiccups to all probable candidates preparing to go to polls.
Despite the Delhi Election Commission having announced the MCD election on March 14 and the nomination processes having started on March 27, Aam Aadmi Party is the only major player that has announced all of its candidates for the Municipal polls.
BJP is yet to announce a single candidate, while Congress on Sunday announced the names of 140 candidates out of a possible 272. With no formal list of candidates released so far, it seems that BJP is taking its time fearing that a definite announcement of candidates might result in a rebellion from those eyeing the party tickets.
A major decision that BJP took ahead of the Municipal polls was to not field its sitting councillors in the present election, which did not go well with the councillors.
Congress too has been treading cautiously over deciding its candidates, resulting in confusion within the party ranks whether or not they would get tickets.
Meanwhile, Delhi State Election Commissioner S K Srivastava outright rejected to extend the date for filing of nomination by even a day beyond April 3. He did, however, agree to extend the timings for filing the nomination from between 11.00 am and 3.00 pm to between 11.00 am and 6.00 pm.
Srivastava ordered to all returning officers to receive nominations of only those candidates who file it by 6.00 pm on Monday.
According to a statement from the election office, BJP state coordinator Subhash Sachdeva requested for the extension of the date to file the nomination by a day.
An order issued by State Election Commission stated that the offices of returning officers for the election will be closed on Saturday due to public holiday. As such no nomination papers were filed.
None will be filed on Sunday either, on account of it being a government holiday. This leaves Monday as the last date for filing=nomination papers, leaving BJP and Congress little time to finalise their list of candidates.
Congress was expected to release its first list of around 150 candidates last week and came out with a list of 140 candidates late on Saturday.
It is reported that there is discontent among some Congress workers, who are unhappy with state Congress Chief Ajay Maken over distribution of tickets to the candidates for reserved and general seats. A few days ago, former Congress legislators Devendra Yadav, Rajesh Lilothia, Raj Kumar Chauhan and others attended a meeting with a few other party workers.
"They discussed that the state leadership, headed by Ajay Maken, has been allowing too many outsiders for the tickets," said sources.
Workers of the Delhi Congress are reportedly not making slogans and banners for civic polls for the indecisiveness and many workers claim they are very impatient over the whole issue.
Delhi BJP, meanwhile, decided not to give tickets to any of its sitting councillors or their family members in a bid to curb parivaarwaad (nepotism). It is thus expected that the party will announce fresh candidates for all the 272 wards. Earlier, the party had announced that it will not give tickets for the Municipal polls to candidates above the age of 60.
The ruling AAP, which is contesting the MCD polls with a lot of flair and effort, will be looking to win the MCD polls with a sizeable margin to assert its political dominance, the way it did in the 2015 Delhi Assembly elections. The party has already announced all its 272 candidates.