New Delhi: Congress' face for Delhi Assembly polls, Ajay Maken will contest from Sadar Bazar as the party today released the second list of 25 candidates that included former MP Mahabal Mishra and former Speaker Yoganand Shastri.
The party is yet to name its candidate for New Delhi constituency, which was represented by former Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit for three consecutive terms before she was trounced by AAP's Arvind Kejriwal in 2013 polls. Party sources said that former Delhi Minister Kiran Walia will be fielded from New Delhi constituency. Mishra will contest from his Dwarka, while Shastri will fight from Malviya Nagar. He was defeated from Mehrauli constituency in the last election.
Another former Speaker Chaudhary Prem Singh has been fielded from the reserved Ambedkar Nagar seat. Former Deputy Speaker Amrish Singh Gautam is contesting from Kondli while another former MLA Neeraj Basoya has been fielded from Kasturba Nagar.
With this, Congress has named its candidates for 49 seats in the 70-member Delhi Assembly.
Maken, a former Union Minister and AICC General Secretary and party's Communication Department Chairman, is the face of the party for Delhi this time and is the Campaign Committee Chairman of Congress for the Assembly polls.
The candidature of former MP and Union Minister Krishna Tirath, whom the party plans to field, is yet to be announced.
Independent MLA in the outgoing Assembly Ramveer Shokeen's wife Rita Shokeen has been fielded from Mundka seat.
Ramveer had joined Congress a few days back. Former MLA Harishankar Gupta and Anil Bhardwaj have been fielded from Wazirpur and Trinagar respectively while another former legislator Surender Pal Singh will contest from Timarpur.
Delhi Commission of Women Chief Barkha Singh, who was defeated in the last election by AAP, failed to get a ticket this time from R K Puram constituency, which she had represented earlier. The party has fielded Leeladhar Bhatt from there.
A number of new faces also figure in the list.
Two former MLAs Kanwar Karan Singh and Sumesh Shokeen, who had faced defeat in the last election, have been given nomination from Model Town and Matiala constituencies respectively.
A number of former MLAs, who have been given tickets, were in the third position in the 2013 Assembly polls.
The new faces, who have been given tickets include Pratyush Kant (Kirari), Sukhbir Sharma (Rohini), Madan Khorwal (Karolbagh), Suresh Kumar (Janakpuri), Brahma Pal (Trilokpuri), Sandeep Tanwar (Delhi Cant.), Rajesh Sohan (Deoli) and Sulekh Agrawal (Shalimar Bagh).
Breaking from the past practice, Congress decided to declare candidates for Delhi polls early. It had released its first list of 24 candidates on January 1 repeating all its eight MLAs and 12 others who were runner-ups in the 2013 polls.
The last election had brought an end to the 15-year-long rule of the party led by Sheila Dikshit, who was defeated by Kejriwal by a margin of over 25,000 votes in her home constituency New Delhi. The party had managed to win only eight out of 70 seats.
