LS polls: AAP will not give tickets to its MLAs and Ministers

NEW DELHI: The AAP will not give tickets to any of its MLAs or sitting Ministers in the coming LS poll confirmed the party sources. Delhi AAP convenor Gopal Rai said that the party will announce all the candidates by end of this month. "We have decided that all the Lok Sabha poll candidates from Delhi would be announced by the end of this month. We have also decided that not sitting ministers or MLAs would become a candidate," said Rai.

The party has already started its work at the booth level. Earlier, the Aam Aadmi Party's national council decided that the party would contest the 2019 Lok Sabha election in Delhi, Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh and Goa with its "full strength", leaving open the option of entering into alliances in other States.

AAP already appointed Raghav Chadha, Dilip Pandey and Atishi as in-charge of constituencies in Delhi. For North East Delhi seat, the AAP has appointed its spokesperson and former Delhi unit convenor Dilip Pandey. Pankaj Gupta has been chosen as in-charge of Chandni Chowk. For North West Delhi constituency, it has chosen Guggan Singh Ranga, a former BJP MLA who switched sides after the party chose Ved Prakash over him in the Bawana bypoll. AAP also announced Brijesh Goyal and Rajpal Solanki as party's in-charges of New Delhi and West Delhi parliamentary seats for the election.

Party sources said the in-charges will be ultimately the candidates on the respective seats. However, they also said "last minute" changes could take place as some of the in-charges were "too new faces" without much political experience. The party will test waters in 2019 Lok Sabha elections independently on all seats in Delhi, Punjab, Haryana and Goa. In all, AAP will field its candidates at 100 Lok Sabha seats across the country. In the 2014 parliamentary elections, it fielded 432 candidates for 543 Lok Sabha seats across the country, including seven in Delhi.