All BJP candidates for Delhi Lok Sabha seats named

The names of Harsh Malhotra and Yogendra Chandolia were part of the BJP’s second list of candidates announced on Wednesday

The Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) on Wednesday named its candidates for the North West and East Delhi parliamentary seats, completing its list for all seven Lok Sabha seats in the Capital.

Only Manoj Tiwari from the North East Delhi seat has been retained by the BJP this time for a Lok Sabha seat from Delhi. All six others have been changed. (ANI)

While the party fielded Harsh Malhotra, former mayor of the East Delhi Municipal Corporation, from the East Delhi seat; it named former North MCD mayor Yogendra Chandolia from the North West seat. With this, the party changed all but one sitting MP from the Capital. Among the seven outgoing Delhi MPs -- all of whom came from the BJP -- only Manoj Tiwari from the North East Delhi seat got the party ticket this time. All six others have been changed.

The names of Malhotra and Chandolia were part of the BJP’s second list of candidates announced on Wednesday for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

The Aam Aadmi Party is contesting the Delhi seats in alliance with the Congress. The AAP has already announced its candidates on the four seats that the party will contest -- East Delhi, South Delhi, New Delhi and West Delhi. The Congress which will contest the remaining three seats -- North East, Chandni Chowk and North West -- is yet to announce its candidates.

Read Here: Bhupesh Baghel, Shashi Tharoor, KC Venugopal among Congress candidates for 2024 polls. Check full list

Five of the six MPs who were dropped this time Harsh Vardhan, Meenakshi Lekhi, Pravesh Sahib Singh, and Ramesh Bidhuri were holding their seats since 2014. Party leaders, speaking on condition of anonymity, said fresh faces have been fielded this time to beat any potential anti-incumbency against them.

With the two candidates announced on Wednesday, the BJP has named all contenders on the seven Delhi seats. Leader of opposition in the Delhi Assembly Ramvir Singh Bidhuri has been fielded from South Delhi; Bansuri Swaraj, lawyer, and daughter of former Union minister Sushma Swaraj, from New Delhi; trade association leader Praveen Khandelwal from Chandni Chowk; former south Delhi mayor Kamaljeet Sehrawat from West Delhi; former East Delhi mayor Harsh Malhotra from East Delhi seat; former North Delhi mayor Yogendra Chandolia from North West; and actor-turned-politician Manoj Tiwari from North East Delhi seat.

Meanwhile the party has repeated the incumbent MPs from Gurgaon, Rao Inderjit Singh and Krishan Pal Gurjar from Faridabad.

Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva said all the seven BJP candidates in Delhi have worked with the party organisation. “I feel proud that the party leadership chose all seven candidates with strong organizational background. All these candidates are close to the party workers in their area. We will fight this election with a positive agenda and will win all seven seats,” said Sachdeva.

Lok Sabha elections 2024: These 4 controversial MPs missing from BJP's first list

The Aam Aadmi Party said that the fact that the BJP changed six of the seven sitting MPs was an admission that they were “ineffective”. “The BJP has changed 6 out of 7 candidates. This is an admission by the BJP that their MPs were either corrupt or ineffective. In either case, BJP should apologise to the people of Delhi for wasting their five years,” the AAP said in a statement.

A Delhi Congress leader said the announcement of the party candidates is likely after the Central Election Committee meeting on March 15. Delhi Congress leader Mukesh Sharma said even though the process for the declaration of candidates was going on, Delhi Congress is working on the ground, engaging with party workers and people with the objective of ensuring that the INDIA bloc wins all seven seats.

To be sure, the BJP won all seven seats in both 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections. In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the party received 56.6% of the votes, while the AAP had a vote share of 18.11% and the Congress got 22.51% votes.Last time, the BJP, Congress, and the AAP were in a triangular contest. This time, the AAP and the Congress are contesting together as part of the Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) grouping.