NEW DELHI: Congress on Tuesday released its third list for the Delhi assembly elections, naming 16 new candidates. Prominent among these are former Union minister Krishna Tirath and former AAP MLA Dharampal Lakra, who recently switched to the party.
Congress has now announced candidates for 63 out of the total 70 assembly seats.
While Tirath has been fielded from the Patel Nagar (SC) constituency, Lakra, who won on an AAP ticket in Mundka in the 2020 polls, will contest from the same seat. Congress has also nominated former MLA Asif Mohammad Khan’s daughter and Shaheen Bagh councillor Ariba Khan from the Okhla assembly constituency.
In a notable change, Pramod Kumar Jayant replaces former councillor Ishwar Bhagri for the Gokulpur constituency, which is reserved for SC candidates.
The list features several former MLAs, including Kanwar Karan Singh from Model Town and Bhisham Sharma from Ghonda. Singh served three consecutive terms as the Model Town MLA in 1998, 2003 and 2008, but lost the election in 2013 and 2015. His daughter Akanksha Ola contested in 2020, but was defeated.
Similarly, Sharma represented Ghonda constituency as MLA from 1998 till 2008. He contested in 2015, but lost. He later joined BJP after being expelled from Congress in April 2019. He returned to the party in 2020 and contested the election, but lost.
Tirath, who is also a former Delhi govt minister, had left Congress for four years, returning to the party fold in 2019. She contested from Patel Nagar in 2020 but was defeated by former AAP MLA Raaj Kumar Anand.
During her political career, Tirath held the position of Union minister in the UPA-2 govt before joining BJP in 2015, just ahead of the Delhi assembly elections, where she contested unsuccessfully. Her extensive political experience includes roles as metropolitan councillor, three-term Delhi MLA, state minister, two-term MP and cabinet minister.
Earlier, Congress had nominated Mahila Congress chief Alka Lamba from Kalkaji to take on chief minister Atishi. It also fielded former MP Sandeep Dikshit from New Delhi, setting up a contest between him and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal.
With its influence diminished in Delhi, a region where it held sway till it lost to AAP, the forthcoming Delhi elections represent a crucial test of survival for Congress. The party, which failed to secure any seats in the previous two assembly elections in the national capital, is now urgently seeking to restore its electoral standing.
The Delhi elections will see Congress take on its INDIA bloc partner, AAP, just eight months after the two parties contested the Lok Sabha elections in an alliance. The elections will be held on Feb 5 and the results will be declared on Feb 8. The last date for filing nominations for the election is Jan 17 and the names can be withdrawn till Jan 20.