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Congress banks on familiar heavyweights to win back Delhi
New Delhi: The Congress party, which could not win even a single seat last assembly elections, is planning to field heavyweights in the state polls due on February
New Delhi: The Congress party, which could not win even a single seat last assembly elections, is planning to field heavyweights in the state polls due on February 8.
The party that governed the national capital for 15 years, before the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) wrested power from it, is banking on some of its prominent faces who had contested the Lok Sabha elections last year.
The party’s acting president Sonia Gandhi Monday called a meeting of senior party leaders to discuss the poll preparedness and asked former Delhi MPs and MLAs to contest the polls to give the party a push. The Congress had lost ground after its repeated defeats in the 2013 and 2015 assembly elections at the hands of AAP.
According to senior party leaders, those present in the meeting included four-time MP and veteran Congress leader JP Agarwal, former Delhi unit president Ajay Maken and former MLAs Arvinder Singh Lovely, Rajesh Lilothia and Naseeb Singh.
“Sonia ji told us that she wanted all of us to contest the assembly elections. This is mainly because most of the leaders present are familiar faces and had contested the general elections last year. We are happy to be given the opportunity,” a senior leader who was present in the meeting, not wishing to be named, said.
According to senior party functionaries, party veteran Agarwal said he has no problem contesting himself, but would prefer his son, Mudit Agarwal, to be considered from the Chandni Chowk constituency, to which the family belongs and from where he had previously contested most of the elections.
Party leaders said earlier, there was some reluctance on the part of the leaders who had contested the Lok Sabha elections to fight the assembly polls, but most of them may finally agree.
Lilothia, former MLA from west Delhi’s Patel Nagar, said he has agreed to contest. “I have proposed to contest against Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal from wherever he chooses to stand,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Congress’s screening committee met again on Monday to finalise the candidates for other constituencies. Senior leaders said the party has finalised candidates for over 15 constituencies and will come out with its list this week. The committee had met over the weekend, too, to finalise some names.
Delhi Congress chief Subhash Chopra said, “We are shortlisting candidates from over 800 applications and will give preference youth and women. The list will come out soon.”
The screening committee includes Chopra, Congress general secretary in-charge PC Chacko and co in- charge Kuljeet Singh Nagra.
