BJP declares 57 candidates for Delhi polls, fields 20 new faces

New Delhi [India], Jan 17 (ANI): The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has given the ticket to 20 new faces in Delhi assembly polls with the list of 57 candidates declared on Friday also having sitting and several former MLAs.
The party has not declared candidates on 13 seats including New Delhi from where Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is re-contesting.
Of the 57 candidates declared, four are women and 11 belong to the Dalit community.
Sources said the BJP is also in talks with the Shiromani Akali Dal and the Jannayak Janata Party (JJP) on some of the pending seats.
They said one round of talks have been held between JJP leader and Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Dushyant Chautala and the BJP leadership.
The sources said the second round of talks is expected to take place on Friday evening or on Saturday.
It is learnt that JJP has staked the claim on 10 seats but the BJP has offered the party two seats with four of its candidates to fight on the BJP symbol.
The JJP has to take a call on offer made by the BJP.
Sources said that there has been an agreement on giving two seats to the Shiromani Akali Dal and one of its candidates will fight the polls on BJP symbol.
SAD leader Manjinder Singh Sirsa is a BJP MLA in Delhi.
Sources said that no discussion was held on New Delhi seat at the meeting of CEC held on Thursday evening.
It is believed that the BJP is thinking of fielding a known name from the seat and a senior leader from its Delhi unit could be fielded.
The names of party candidates were declared at a press conference here by Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari, who said that it was a list of winners and expressed confidence about the party forming the government in Delhi.
Union Minister Prakash Javadekar was among those present at the presser.
Former AAP leader Kapil Mishra, who joined BJP last year, will contest from Model Town in north Delhi.
The party candidates include Jai Prakash from Sadar Bazar, Suman Kumar Gupta from Chandani Chowk, Ashish Sood from Janakpuri, Sanjay Singh from Vikaspuri, Vijay Pandit from Palam, IS Bakshi from Jangpura, Anil Sharma from RK Puram, Arvind Kumar from Deoli, Shikha Rai from Tughlakabad, Vijay Bhagat from Rithala, Anil Jha from Kirari and Rekha Gupta from Shalimar Bagh.
The voting for 70-member Delhi assembly will be held on February 8. The counting of votes will take place on February 11.
The BJP faces a tough battle in Delhi where it has been out of power for over two decades. The party could win only three seats in the last assembly polls with the ruling AAP scoring a landslide victory with 67 seats. (ANI)