Kapil Mishra, former CM’s son in BJP’s 2nd list of 29 candidates

NEW DELHI: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) released its second list of 29 candidates for the next month’s Delhi Assembly elections on Saturday. With this, the party has finalised candidates for 58 out of the 70 Assembly seats.

While former MLA Kapil Mishra has been fielded from Karawal Nagar, sitting Lakshmi Nagar MLA Abhay Verma has been nominated from the same constituency again. Similarly, it has fielded Harish Khurana, the son of former Delhi chief minister Madan Lal Khurana from Moti Nagar.

The BJP has given ticket to Neelam Pahalwan from Najafgarh, which is the constituency of former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) minister Kailash Gahlot. Notably, Gahlot, who left the AAP and joined the BJP last year after a fallout with the leadership, had been named as the party’s candidate from Bijswasan constituency.

In the second list, the BJP has fielded Priyanka Gautam in Kondli. Raj Karan Khatri in Narela, Surya Prakash Khatri in Timarpur, Gajendra Daral in Mundka, Bajrang Shukla in Kirari, Karan Singh Karma in Sultanpur Majra, Karnail Singh in Shakur Basti and Tilak Ram Gupta in Trinagar.

Manoj Kumar Jindal has got the ticket in Sadar Bazar, Satish Jain in Chandni Chowk, Deepti Indora in Matia Mahal, Urmila Kailash Gangwal in Madipur, Shyam Sharma in Hari Nagar, Shweta Saini in Tilak Nagar, Pankaj Kumar Singh in Vikaspuri, Pawan Sharma in Uttam Nagar, Praduymn Rajput in Dwarka, Sandeep Sehrawat in Matiala, Kuldeep Solanki in Palam, Umang Bajaj in Rajinder Nagar, Neeraj Basoya in Kasturba Nagar and Rohtas Bidhuri in Tughlakabad.

Some of the prominent leaders who featured in the first list of candidates released by the BJP on January 4 include former Lok Sabha MP Parvesh Verma who will face AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal in the New Delhi constituency and BJP leader and former MP Ramesh Bidhuri, who will contest against Delhi Chief Minister Atishi in Kalkaji. Former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) minister Raaj Kumar Anand, who also joined the BJP this year, has been fielded by the party from Patel Nagar.

Voting for all 70 Assembly seats in Delhi will take place on February 5 and the counting will be taken up on February 8. The BJP is eyeing a comeback in the national Capital as it has been out of power since 1998 while the ruling AAP is seeking to retain the power for the third time. The Congress is also trying to make its presence felt in the electoral arena.