The Aam Admi Party on Tuesday released a list of candidates for all the 70 seats in Delhi. With nine new candidates, including Vinay Mishra and Ram Singh Netaji, the AAP has made sure there are no chinks in its armour.
Here is a list of five candidates, who could prove to be crucial in the upcoming Assembly polls.
Arvind Kejriwal (New Delhi constituency)
The current Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is the national convenor and founder of the Aam Admi Party, an outcrop of the Anna Hazare-led Lokpal movement. After founding the party in 2012, Hazare, who had come to be a prominent face of the movement, defeated then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit from the New Delhi constituency in the 2013 elections. He, however, resigned in 2014 after failing to table the Jan Lokpal Bill in the Delhi Assembly.
Kejriwal would make a comeback in the subsequent elections as his party won 67 out of the 70 constituencies. This time again, Kejriwal is standing from the New Delhi constituency. So far, in his campaign, Kejriwal has emphasised on the several educational reforms and health reforms brought about by his government in the past five years.
Manish Sisodia (Patparganj constituency)
A close associate of Kejriwal since the 2011 Lokpal movement, Manish Sisodia's brush with politics happened in 2012 when he became a member of AAP’s political affairs committee. Then in the 2013 elections, Sisodia defeated BJP candidate Nakul Bharadwaj in the Patparganj constituency. Two years later, Sisodia won again as he defeated BJP’s Vinod Kumar Binny from Patparganj and went onto become the capital’s first deputy chief minister.
Atishi (Kalkaji constituency)
Widely regarded for helming the AAP’s effort towards reforming the educational system, Atishi joined the party as a member of its apex executive body back in 2013. Following this, she was appointed the party’s spokesperson. Her foray into politics in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections proved unsuccessful as she lost to BJP’s candidate Gautam Gambhir, coming in third in the tally.
Amantullah Khan (Okhla constituency)
Amanatullah Khan, AAP MLA and Okhla candidate is perhaps the party’s most controversial face. Khan first contested the elections in 2013 as a Lok Jan Shakti Party candidate but managed to win only 3600 votes. Then in 2015, he contested on an AAP ticket and defeated BJP’s Braham Singh.
Khan has been mired in several controversies. He was put under arrest in 2016 after a woman filed a case against him for allegedly threatening her with "dire consequences". Despite being let out on bail, Khan was booked again a few months later over allegations of sexual harassment by his sister-in-law.
Recently, Khan made headlines once again after Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari alleged that he had “provoked” anti-CAA protestors. Another BJP spokesperson also alleged that he had been a part of the mob that had torched buses during the protests. The claim was later found to be false after it was proven that Khan had in fact been participating at anti-CAA protests at Shaheen Bagh at the time of the incident. Khan is once again contesting from Okhla, which has been at the epicentre of anti-CAA protests in the national capital.
Vinay Mishra (Dwarka constituency)
The son of Purbanchali heavyweight Mahabal Mishra, Vinay Mishra was chosen over Lal Bahadur Shastri’s Grandson, the sitting MLA from Dwarka Adarsh Mishra. It seems that Vinay Mishra, a former vice-president of Delhi Youth Congress, was brought into AAP’s fold in a bid to woo Purvanchal voters. Most of the Purvanchali migrants are settled in areas that comprise Delhi’s unauthorised colonies, which is central to BJP's campaign for the upcoming elections.
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