Eager AAP gets its wish

Senior party leaders said of the 70 candidates required, over 40 were “close to being finalised. “We have 27 MLAs and most of them will be in the fray. There were 11 seats where AAP was a close second, losing by less than five thousand seats. These candidates are likely to be given another chance,” a senior leader said.

Those in the party also revealed that despite the party not winning a seat in the Lok Sabha elections, its candidates for the parliamentary seats were in contention again. They said names like Anand Kumar, Devinder Sehrawat, and Ashutosh were “strong contenders”.

“Ashutosh managed to push Kapil Sibal to third, and in seats that were considered strongholds, both Sehrawat and Anand Kumar did very well. They are also faces of the party now,” the leader said.

Within minutes of news filtering through that Lieutenant Governor Najeeb Jung would write to the President, the AAP began presenting the Assembly elections as a Jagdish Mukhi versus Arvind Kejriwal battle, attempting to negate the influence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the city.

“We will raise the issue that we gave a corruption-free government for 49 days. The AAP, even when out of power, took steps to empower RWA’s, and this will be part of the campaign,” said Manish Sisodia.

Apart from the campaign issues of power, water and corruption, the AAP will also look to add “infrastructure development” to the campaign.

It is learnt that AAP will not withdraw their petition seeking dissolution of the Delhi assembly from the Supreme Court, as insurance against “something going wrong”.

“We will wait for the Centre to tell the Supreme Court that fresh elections are being held, and if that happens the petition becomes infructuous,” a leader said.