Delhi elections: AAP announces candidates for all 70 seats, sitting MLA resigns from party

NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party on Tuesday announced its list of 70 candidates for the February 8 Delhi Assembly polls, with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal contesting again from New Delhi seat and his deputy Manish Sisodia from Patparganj seat.

The party has dropped 15 sitting MLAs and given tickets to a total of 24 new faces, including Atishi, Dilip Pandey and Raghav Chadha who unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

The AAP has also given ticket to five leaders who jumped ship from the Congress, including five-time MLA Shoaib Iqbal who will fight from Matia Mahal. Iqbal, who was former Deputy Speaker in Delhi Assembly, is among four Muslim candidates.

There are eight women candidates. Besides Kejriwal and his deputy, all the five other Delhi government ministers also figure in the list, released by the AAP's Political Affairs Committee on the first day of the nomination process.

Oxford-educated Atishi, who is among the AAP's prominent faces and had lost to Gautam Gambhir in East Delhi Lok Sabha seat, will be contesting from Kalkaji while Chadha has been fielded from Rajendra Nagar and Pandey from Timarpur.

Meanwhile, N D Sharma, sitting AAP MLA from Badarpur, on Tuesday said he has resigned from the party and accused it of selling tickets to candidates.

His resignation comes a day after AAP inducted two-time MLA Ram Singh Netaji to the party. On Monday, Sharma had sat on a protest at Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia's residence over Netaji's induction.

"I have resigned from the party. We joined the AAP for clean politics but what is the difference between you (AAP) and other political parties now. I won with 94,000 votes and he (Netaji) with 17,000 votes but he was inducted into the party just like that. The hard work of volunteers was ignored," Sharma said.

Sharma further said he would contest the upcoming polls but did not disclose if he would join another party or fight independently.

On the other hand, AAP's main rivals - BJP and Congress - are yet to announce any candidate for the polls.

Election to the 70-member Delhi Assembly will be held on February 8 and counting of votes is on February 11