In BJP’s first Delhi list, key faces of former Kejriwal, Sheila teams; focus on ‘winnability’

The BJP’s first list features former Delhi Congress president and East Delhi strongman Arvinder Singh Lovely from Gandhi Nagar and ex-Congress minister Rajkumar Chauhan from Mangolpuri. Both of them had switched to the BJP in the run-up to the 2024 Lok Sabha polls. They were ministers in the previous Congress government led by late Sheila Dikshit.

Former AAP minister Kailash Gahlot, who was a prominent member of the erstwhile Kejriwal Cabinet, who joined the BJP last November, has been fielded from Bijwasan.

Ex-AAP Chhatarpur MLA Kartar Singh Tanwar has been given a ticket from the same seat and former Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay, who has also served as New Delhi Municipal Council vice-chairperson, has been fielded from Malviya Nagar. The list also includes Manjinder Singh Sirsa, fielded from Rajouri Garden, which he won on a Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) ticket in 2013 and in a 2017 by-poll, before switching over to the BJP in 2021.

Referring to the turncoats making it to the BJP’s list, a party source said, “This augurs well for another former Congress leader who joined the party this year — Neeraj Basoya who might be fielded from Kasturba Nagar in the next list. Eyebrows, however, are also being raised within the party with discussions around whether there are no leaders within the BJP who could have been fielded from within the organisation instead of more than half a dozen turncoats.”

The source also said, “While two former BJP MPs — Verma and Bidhuri — have been accommodated, what remains to be seen is whether ex-New Delhi party MP Meenakshi Lekhi and former Chandni Chowk MP Dr Harsh Vardhan will also be fielded or not,” the source added.

The BJP dropped its Gandhi Nagar MLA Anil Bajpai, a former AAP leader, giving the ticket to Lovely instead. Former AAP minister Raaj Kumar Anand and ex-BJP Rajya Sabha MP Dushyant Gautam have been fielded from the Patel Nagar and Karol Bagh seats respectively.

BJP insiders said the candidates named so far underlined the BJP’s focus on their “local popularity and winnability over everything else”.

“The nomination of leaders such as Anand, former Congress leader Tarvinder Singh Marwah fielded from Jangpura against AAP leader Manish Sisodia, and our councillor Ravindra Singh Negi nominated from Patparganj on Sisodia’s previous seat, underline these criteria,” a senior BJP leader said, adding that “winning these polls after remaining out of power in Delhi for 27 years now is a priority for us”.

“What needs to be understood is that all these picks, and the rest who will follow – our second list is likely either after the PM’s rally (on Sunday) or by Monday – are based on surveys by the BJP’s national and state leadership as well as that of the RSS. Moreover, Delhi in-charge Baijayant Panda has discussed the candidature of each pick with the BJP MP concerned under whose Lok Sabha seat each Assembly constituency someone has been fielded from falls,” another source said.

Marwah has been a Congress MLA during all three of the Sheila Dikshit-led Congress regime from 1998 to 2013.

From among eight sitting BJP MLAs, six have made it to the first list, who include Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the outgoing Assembly Vijender Gupta, Vishwas Nagar MLA O P Sharma, Ghonda MLA Ajay Mahawar, and Jitendra Mahajan who represents Rohtas Nagar.

With candidates for 41 of the 70 Assembly seats yet to be declared, the BJP has declared its nominees on six of the 10 Assembly segments within the South Delhi Lok Sabha seat, five each in the East Delhi, New Delhi and North West Delhi parliamentary constituencies, three each in Chandni Chowk and North East Delhi, in addition to two seats in the West Delhi Lok Sabha seat.

While the AAP has declared all 70 of its candidates, the Congress has announced 48 nominees so far.

In 2020, the AAP had swept the Delhi polls for the second consecutive time, bagging 62 seats, with the BJP getting eight and the Congress drawing a blank.