AAP’S fresh candidates strike a confident note
NEW DELHI: In 2015, they were political greenhorns facing the challenge that their success in the 2013 elections was not a fluke. Five years later, the Aam Aadmi Party is going back to the electorate with known faces and a list of works that the its government has done in the past five years in the national capital.
Besides repeating prominent MLAS, which includes the CM and the deputy CM, the party has also given ticket to three of the seven candidates that it had fielded in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls — Raghav Chadha, Atishi and Dilip Pandey. Despite not being part of the government, all three have been prominent faces of the party, representing it in various fora.
On Wednesday, a day after the AAP announced its candidates for the assembly elections on February 8, Chadha opened his election office in Rajendra Nagar – the assembly constituency from where he is the party candidate.
“This office will be my permanent workplace for the next five years. It will be used for dealing with public, a place where anyone from Rajendra Nagar can come to get their grievances resolved,” Chadha said.
When asked if his campaign during Lok Sabha polls would proving beneficial in connecting with the voters, Chadha said, “I was born in New Rajendra Nagar and my parents and rest of my family live in this area. This whole area is like a family for me. So, people know me; also because I have been actively working for AAP over the past few years.”
Atishi, the party candidate from Kalkaji, said her work with deputy chief minister and Delhi’s education minister Manish Sisodia in the education sector will help her make an immediate connect with the people in the area. She had contested from the East Delhi parliamentary constituency last year. “Thanks to my work on Delhi government schools, I have had the opportunity to work across various constituencies. As advisor to Sisodia, I have worked very closely on the School of Excellence project in Kalkaji. I have a close connection with hundreds of parents in school management committees (SMCS) in Kalkaji. I am looking forward to serve the people of Kalkaji over the next five years,” she said.
Karawal Nagar candidate Durgesh Pathak says he already has a base in the area. The seat had fallen vacant in August, 2019 after sitting AAP MLA Kapil Mishra was disqualified for defecting to the BJP.
Deputy CM Sisodia, who will be contesting from east Delhi’s Patparganj seat for the third consecutive time, will file his nomination papers on Thursday. AAP MLA from Okhla, Amanatullah Khan, who is seeking re-election from the seat, announced on Wednesday that he will have low-key campaign.
“Today, it has been one month since our sisters, students and every local in my constituency have been protesting against CAA and NRC. Both Shaheen Bagh and Jamia fall in my seat and so I have decided that till the protests continue, I will not conduct any pad yatra, bike rally or hold any public meeting. I will only go door-to-door and give pamphlets to people,” he said.