AAP Announces Lok Sabha Candidates For 4 Seats In Delhi, 1 In Haryana Days After Sealing Pact With Congress

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday announced five candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections of which four seats are from Delhi and one is from Haryana. This comes days after the Arvind Kejriwal-led party sealed the seat-sharing agreement for the general elections with the Congress in Delhi, Haryana, Goa and Gujarat.

The AAP has pitted sitting Kondli MLA Kuldeep Kumar from East Delhi, three-time Tughkalabad MLA Sahiram Pahalwan from South Delhi, former MP Mahabal Mishra from West Delhi, Malviya Nagar MLA Somnath Bharti from New Delhi and former Rajya Sabha MP Sushil Gupta from Kurukshetra (Haryana).

Notably, Kuldeep Kumar Monu belongs to the Scheduled Caste and yet the party has fielded him from an unreserved constituency, which is currently being represented by cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir.

AAP chief and Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal said his party took a revolutionary step to give the ticket to Kuldeep Kumar.

“East Delhi is a general category seat. From there, we have given a ticket to Kuldeep Kumar of the SC community. No party gives tickets to the SC community from general seats. Only AAP is fulfilling Baba Sahib’s dream. Kuldeep Kumar is the son of a sanitation worker and comes from a very poor family,” he said in a video posted on X.

Referring to Kuldeep Kumar Monu’s candidature, Delhi minister Atishi said that the AAP is the only party that is attempting to finish caste-based politics in the country.

AAP’s pick for West Delhi is Mahabal Mishra, a former Congress MP who had joined the Kejriwal-led party in 2022. Interestingly, Mishra’s son — Vinay Mishra — is also an AAP MLA.

Former AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sushil Kumar Gupta, who was the only one among the three Upper House MPs not to be re-nominated, will contest from Kurukshetra.

AAP MP and organisation secretary Sandeep Pathak announced the names of candidates following the party’s political affairs committee (PAC) meeting at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s residence on Tuesday.

“As part of the INDIA alliance, we are contesting elections in five states. In all, there will be 23 candidates of which we have already declared 5. Today, we are announcing 5 more. AAP is contesting in Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat and Assam as part of the INDIA alliance,” Pathak said.

Unlike in 2014 and 2019 when the battle became triangular with the entry of the AAP, Delhi will see a bipolar contest in 2024 between the BJP and INDIA bloc.

As part of the seat-sharing arrangement, the AAP will contest from four seats while the Congress party will field its candidates for three seats. In Haryana, Congress got nine out of ten seats, while AAP got one seat, Kurukshetra. Congress will also contest the only seat in Chandigarh.

AAP Candidates In 2019 Polls

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Atishi contested from East Delhi, Raghav Chadha from South Delhi, Brijesh Goyal from New Delhi and Balbir Singh Jhakar from West Delhi. Apart from these, the party had fielded Pankaj Gupta from Chandni Chowk, Dilip Pandey from North East and Guggan Singh from North West Delhi. Of these, Dilip Pandey was the only sitting MLA.

However, the AAP lost all seven seats to the Bharatiya Janata Party, which won by over 50% of the vote share in each seat. The saffron party swept all seven seats in the 2014 general elections as well.

This time, however, the Kejriwal-led party hopes that the alliance with the Congress will help in the consolidation of the anti-BJP vote. It is also hoping for a higher turnout than over 61% in 2019, which incidentally was lower than the 65% turnout recorded in 2014.

Referring to the more than double-digit vote share between the BJP and the combined vote share of AAP and Congress in 2019, Pathak said, “In politics, one does not always get an accurate picture by adding up voting percentages. The total voting percentage varies in each election, which segment registers how much turnout, and candidates also matter. And when two political parties work in a combined manner, everything changes.”