BJP Announces First Slate of Candidates for Delhi Assembly Elections

New Delhi, 4th January 2025: With less than a week until the Delhi assembly elections are announced, the BJP has revealed its first slate of candidates. The list includes four sitting legislators, two former MPs, and eight former MLAs.

Former West Delhi MP Parvesh Verma will challenge AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal in the New Delhi assembly seat, while ex-South Delhi MP Ramesh Bidhuri will face Chief Minister Atishi in Kalkaji.

Additionally, four former Delhi ministers—Kailash Gahlot and Raaj Kumar Anand from the outgoing AAP government, along with Arvinder Singh Lovely and Rajkumar Chauhan from Sheila Dikshit’s government (2003-2013)—have also been nominated.

Lovely replaces sitting MLA Anil Kumar Bajpai in Gandhi Nagar. Bajpai, originally elected on an AAP ticket in 2015, switched to the BJP and won the 2020 election as their candidate. Gahlot’s seat has been shifted from Najafgarh to Bijwasan, while Anand will contest from the reserved Patel Nagar constituency. Lovely returns to his old stronghold of Gandhi Nagar, and Chauhan will contest from the reserved Mangolpuri seat.

Another former Congress MLA, Tarwinder Singh Marwah, will run for the Jangpura seat, which he previously held during Congress’ tenure, against former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia.

Sitting BJP MLAs, including Delhi Assembly Leader of Opposition Vijender Gupta, veteran Om Prakash Sharma, Ajay Mahawar, and Jitender Mahajan, will stand for re-election in Rohini, Vishwas Nagar, Ghonda, and Rohtas Nagar, respectively.

Former BJP MLAs Kulwant Rana, Manoj Shokeen, Anil Sharma, and Manjinder Singh Sirsa will contest from Rithala, Nangloi Jat, RK Puram, and Rajouri Garden, respectively. Narayan Dutt Sharma, a former AAP MLA from Badarpur who joined the BJP ahead of the Lok Sabha elections, has been fielded from Badarpur.

Several candidates, including Ashok Goel (Model Town), Raj Kumar Bhatia (Adarsh Nagar), and Rekha Gupta (Shalimar Bagh), are running again after previous unsuccessful attempts in assembly elections.

The elections are scheduled for February. AAP has already declared candidates for all 70 seats, while Congress has named 48 candidates to date. Rekha Gupta, a municipal councillor from Pitampura, and former South MCD mayor Khushiram Chunar, running from the reserved Ambedkar Nagar seat, are among those nominated by the BJP. Kartar Singh Tanwar, an AAP MLA from Chhatarpur who joined the BJP recently, has been fielded from the same constituency. Former Delhi BJP president Satish Upadhyay will contest from Malviya Nagar, and former Congress municipal councillor Kumari Rinku will contest from the reserved Seemapuri constituency.

Delhi BJP President Virendra Sachdeva praised the 29 candidates announced by the party, describing them as strong and capable of driving change in the city. The BJP has yet to announce its candidates for the Karawal Nagar and Laxmi Nagar seats, which were won by sitting MLAs Mohan Singh Bisht and Abhay Verma, respectively, in the 2020 elections.