New Delhi: Former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MP Parvesh Verma has been pitted against former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal with the BJP releasing its first list of 29 candidates for the upcoming Delhi assembly elections.
Verma has been fielded against Kejriwal from the New Delhi assembly constituency.
Another former BJP MP, Ramesh Bidhuri, has been fielded from Kalkaji constituency against Delhi CM Atishi and Congress’s Alka Lamba while former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) minister Kailash Gahlot has been fielded from Bijwasan instead of his turf Najafgarh.
The BJP has also fielded Dushyant Gautam from Karol Bagh, while Manjinder Singh Sirsa will contest from Rajouri Garden, and Arvinder Singh Lovely from Gandhi Nagar in place of MLA Anil Bajpayee.
Free and Fair Journalism Will Continue to be Important in 2025
You are crucial in ensuring that independent journalism thrives. Support us in delivering unbiased, in-depth stories that matter.
The AAP has announced candidates for all 70 Assembly constituencies in Delhi. The Congress has named candidates for 21 seats with more expected soon.
Kejriwal has represented the New Delhi assembly seat since 2013. Verma represented the West Delhi Lok Sabha constituency from 2014 till 2019 and also won from Mehrauli in the 2013 assembly elections. His father Sahib Singh Verma served as the chief minister of Delhi between 1996 and 1998.
Parvesh Verma had already begun preparations to contest from the New Delhi seat, holding meetings with voters and party workers from the constituency to devise a strategy for his campaign.
Speaking to the media following the release of the list, Parvesh Verma said, “I thank my party’s top leadership, PM Modi ji, party president Nadda ji, home minister Amit Shah ji. I hope that the trust that the party has shown in me, I’ll live up to it… We have to save Delhi from ‘Aapda’. When Delhi was facing Covid, when they needed oxygen, Arvind Kejriwal ji was distributing ‘free bottle on every bottle’… There are many works in Delhi like cleaning Yamuna, curbing pollution… when the BJP forms the government, we will do all these works….”
Last month, a controversy had unfolded with Kejriwal and AAP accusing Verma of distributing cash to voters in the New Delhi constituency
While indirectly accusing Verma, Kejriwal, in one of his X posts, hinted that the BJP might name him as the party’s candidate for the upcoming Delhi assembly elections next month.
The BJP has had a successful run in the parliamentary polls in Delhi, wresting all of the capital’s seven seats in 2014, 2019 and 2024. However, assembly results have been disappointing with the party currently accounting for just seven of the city’s 70 MLAs. The AAP won 62 seats in the last elections held in February 2020, but its strength dropped to 59 in September last year.
According to BJP sources, the party is keen to contest the Delhi assembly elections without a face under a collective leadership, as it has done in a number of state elections, including Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh, among others.
The BJP has also fielded Ashish Sood in Janakpuri. Former Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay will contest from Malviya Nagar. The party has fielded Raj Kumar Bhatia in Adarsh Nagar, Deepak Chaudhary in Badli, Kulwant Rana in Rithala, Manoj Shokeen in Nangloi Jat, Rajkumar Chauhan in Mangolpuri and Vijendra Gupta in Rohini.
Rekha Gupta has been named BJP’s candidate in Shalimar Bagh, Raaj Kumar Anand in Patel Nagar, Tarvinder Singh Marwah in Jangpura, Anil Sharma in RK Puram, Gajendra Yadav in Mehrauli, and Kartar Singh Tanwar in Chhatarpur.
The BJP also fielded Khushi Ram Chunar in Ambedkar Nagar, Ravindra Singh Negi in Patparganj, Om Prakash Sharma in Vishwas Nagar, Anil Goyal in Krishna Nagar, Kumari Rinku in Seemapuri, Jitendra Mahajan in Rohtas Nagar and Ajay Mahawar in Ghonda.
