In the Delhi Assembly elections, the three major parties, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), BJP and Congress have given tickets to about 20 people who have turned from enemies to friends, but the path to victory for these candidates will not be easy.
After defection, these candidates are now trying to prove themselves in their new party. Many challenges are facing him. Uneasiness is being seen among the workers and leaders of the parties giving them tickets.
As the elections approached, many prominent leaders of AAP, Congress and BJP changed their sides.
Amid uncertainty over getting tickets for the assembly elections, around half a dozen BJP leaders joined AAP, which immediately fielded them from various constituencies. These leaders had contested the assembly elections in 2020 as BJP candidates.
One of them is Pravesh Ratan, whom AAP has fielded from Patel Nagar (reserved) seat against former minister and BJP candidate Raj Kumar Anand.
In the year 2020 too, both of them were rival candidates but from different parties – Anand from AAP and Ratan from BJP.
Jitendra Singh Shanti and Surinder Pal Bittu joined AAP and got tickets from Shahdara and Timarpur constituencies respectively.
Three other BJP leaders – Brahm Singh Tanwar, B. B. Tyagi and Anil Jha – joined AAP and got tickets for the assembly elections. Tyagi is contesting from Laxmi Nagar, Jha from Kirari and Tanwar from Chhatarpur.
Kartar Singh Tanwar, who defeated Brahm Singh Tanwar in the 2020 elections, is now the BJP candidate from Chhatarpur.
AAP has fielded Jha from Kirari seat by canceling the ticket of outgoing party MLA Rituraj Jha. Anil was defeated by Ruturaj in 2020 by a very small margin of votes.
Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party has also fielded former Congress leaders who had joined AAP in recent months.
A few days after these leaders joined AAP, the party fielded Veer Singh Dhingan from Seemapuri, Sumesh Shaukeen from Matiala and Zubair Ahmed from Seelampur.
Prominent leaders who have joined BJP include former Congress Delhi unit president Arvinder Singh Lovely and former Delhi Transport Minister Kailash Gehlot.
Lovely is contesting on a BJP ticket from the Gandhi Nagar seat while Gehlot is the party’s candidate from the Bijwasan constituency.
BJP has also given tickets to former Congress leaders including Rajkumar Chauhan from Mangolpuri, former MLA Neeraj Basoya from Kasturba Nagar and Tarvinder Marwah from Jangpura.
As far as Congress is concerned, it managed to lure outgoing AAP MLAs — Dharampal Lakra (Mundka) and Abdul Rehman (Seelampur) to its fold and gave them tickets as soon as they joined the party.
Lakra, who joined the Congress earlier this month, is now the party’s candidate from Mundka.
AAP councilor Rajesh Gupta, who joined Congress with Lakra, is now the Congress candidate from Kirari.
Rehman had joined Congress in December last year and has been given ticket from Seelampur.
Besides, former AAP MLAs — Devendra Sehrawat and Haji Ishraq — got tickets from Bijwasan and Babarpur seats respectively after joining the Congress in recent months.
There is a possibility of a triangular contest in Delhi between the ruling AAP, the opposition BJP and the Congress.
Elections for Delhi Assembly are to be held on February 5 and counting of votes will take place on February 8.
