AAP Replies To BJP’s Dare: Arvind Kejriwal, Atishi To Fight Current Seats

Arvind Kejriwal will contest the upcoming Delhi Assembly election from his current constituency New Delhi, the fourth and last list of candidates Aam Aadmi Party released today shows. Delhi Chief Minister Atishi and ministers Saurabh Bharadwaj and Gopal Rai are sticking to their current seats, Kalkaji, Greater Kailash and Babarpur, respectively.

AAP has now released the names of its candidates for all 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly. Shortly after AAP released its final list of candidates, Mr Kejriwal said the party would contest these polls with full confidence and preparations.

“The BJP is invisible. They don’t have a Chief Minister face, a team or a plan, or a vision for Delhi. They have just one slogan and missing — ‘remove Kejriwal’. Ask them what they have done for five years, they will say ‘we abused Kejriwal’,” said the former Chief Minister, who has resigned from the post and said he would return only after the verdict in the “people’s court”

Mr Kejriwal said AAP has a vision for the development of Delhi and its people, a plan and a team of educated leaders to implement this. “We have a list of work we have done in 10 years. Delhi residents will vote for those who work, not those who abuse,” he said. Assembly polls in Delhi are likely to be held in February.

By fielding Mr Kejriwal, Ms Atishi and top ministers from seats they currently represent, AAP has also responded to the BJP’s dare after the ruling party released its second list of candidates. When former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia moved from his current seat Patparganj to Jangpura, Delhi BJP chief Virendraa Sachdeva had claimed that many AAP MLAs didn’t want to contest the polls because they feared defeat. “(Former) Deputy Chief Minister (Sisodia) has fled, imagine the fear. Arvind Kejriwal and Atishi will flee too,” he had said.

Another key name on AAP’s fourth list is senior party leader and former minister Satyendra Jain. Mr Jain, arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in a money laundering case in 2022 and granted bail in October, has been repeated from the Shakur Basti seat he currently holds. This points to the party’s rock-solid support for him. In west Delhi’s Uttam Nagar constituency, AAP has fielded Pooja Balyan, wife of sitting MLA Naresh Balyan. This comes a month after Mr Balyan’s remark, in which he promised to make roads as “smooth as Hema Malini’s cheeks” sparked a row and earned him a rap from the National Commission for Women.

Other key names on the fourth list are senior AAP leader Durgesh Pathak, who will contest from his current seat Rajinder Nagar, and Amanatullah Khan, who has been repeated in Okhla.