AAP announces 4 LS candidates from Delhi, 1 from Haryana

On a day when the Enforcement Directorate (ED) issued eighth summons to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday announced four candidates from Delhi and one from Haryana to contest the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

Taking the lead in announcing candidates ahead of the coming Lok Sabha polls, the party named senior AAP leader and MLA from Malviya Nagar constituency, Somnath Bharti who is also Vice Chairman of the Delhi Jal Board as its candidate from the New Delhi Lok Sabha seat and former Rajya Sabha MP Sushil Gupta as its nominee from Kurukshetra in Haryana.

The five candidates were announced after a meeting of its Political Affairs Committee which was presided over by Delhi Chief Minister and the party’s national convener Arvind Kejriwal. The announcement came days after the party finalised a seat-sharing deal with the Congress in Delhi’s four Lok Sabha seats, giving three seats to the Congress. Both the parties are key constituents of the opposition INDIA bloc which aims to tackle the dominant Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the April-May parliamentary elections. The Election Commission is yet to announce the schedule for the Lok Sabha elections.

AAP national general secretary (Organisation) Sandeep Pathak announced the names of the candidates at a press conference here.

Other AAP candidates are: Kondli MLA Kuldeep Kumar from East Delhi, Sahiram Pehelwan from South Delhi and former MP Mahabal Mishra from the West Delhi Lok Sabha constituency. Mishra is a former Congress MP from the same constituency but he had lost the last two elections to the BJP and switched over to the AAP a few years ago.

During the press conference, Delhi Education Minister Atishi said the main criterion the party followed in the selection of candidates was their presence among people to serve them.

“If you ask about our four candidates, people from their areas will say they are available 24x7 for public service and that is why they have been selected as candidates,” she said, adding that the party does not believe in caste-based politics.

“In the country, seats are categorised as Brahmin-dominated, Bania-dominated and Jat-dominated. But the AAP has broken the equations of caste. We have launched fresh, young persons devoted to public service, in politics. Kuldeep Kumar alias Monu was an ordinary AAP volunteer up to 2017. He has reached here through hard work: first becoming a councilor, then an MLA, and now I hope he will reach Parliament as well,” she added.

Kejriwal said only the AAP is fulfilling the dream of Babasaheb Ambedkar by giving a ticket to a person from the SC community.

“East Delhi is a general category seat. From here, we have given ticket to Kuldeep Kumar of the SC community. No party gives tickets to SC community from general seats. Only AAP is fulfilling Babasaheb’s dream. Kuldeep Kumar is the son of a sanitation worker and comes from a very poor family. Presently he is MLA from Kondli Assembly. Need blessings from all of you,” Kejriwal said in a post in Hindi on microblogging site X.

Women are conspicuous by their absence among the 10 candidates the AAP has announced so far for Lok Sabha seats in Delhi, Gujarat, Assam and Haryana.

Last time in 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the party had contested all the seven seats and fielded Atishi from the East Delhi constituency, Raghav Chadha from South Delhi, Brijesh Goyal from New Delhi, Pankaj Gupta from Chandni Chowk, Dilip Pandey from North East Delhi, Gugan Singh from North West Delhi and Balbir Singh Jakhad from West Delhi. The AAP had emerged as runner-up on two and was pushed to the third spot on the remaining seats, by far an impressive performance by the newbie in the hurly burly of Lok Sabha elections. This time around it will be the AAP-Congress combine in Delhi that is likely to take on the might of the ruling BJP which had swept the polls in Delhi in 2019.

In another development related to the ongoing efforts of the ED to call Kejriwal for questioning in the excise policy-linked money laundering case, the agency sent the eighth summons to him.

Kejriwal has now been asked to depose at the agency’s headquarters here on March 4, official sources said.

Kejriwal on Monday skipped the seventh summons issued to him in the case, saying he would appear before the agency if a court ordered him to do so.

A city court, approached by the ED over Kejriwal skipping its summonses, has listed this matter for further hearing on March 16. The ED, while issuing the eighth summons, rejected the contention that a fresh notice for Kejriwal’s attendance was wrong as the matter was sub-judice.

Kejriwal and his party have alleged that the summonses issued by the ED were “illegal” and aimed at breaking the opposition alliance.

AAP leaders Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh apart from communications in-charge of the party Vijay Nair have been arrested in this case by the ED till now.