By IANS,
New Delhi : The Congress party Wednesday announced its first list of 48 candidates for the Delhi assembly elections Nov 29, clearing the names of 32 legislators. Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit will contest from the New Delhi constituency.
The opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has fielded Vijay Jolly for this seat.
The other ministers from the state government whose names figure in the list include Delhi Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely from Gandhi Nagar, Transport Minister Haroon Yusuf from Ballimaran, Finance Minister A.K. Walia from Laxmi Nagar and Minister for Industries and Labour Mangat Ram Singhal from Adarsh Nagar.
Out of 47 sitting legislators, 32 have been gfielded again, clearly indicating the party’s trust in their work in the last five years. Dayanand Chandela, who came from the BJP, and Ranvir singh Bidhuri, who left the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP), have also been given ticket to contest from Rajouri Garden and Badarpur respectively.
The Congress has fared better than the BJP in terms of representation to women as they have fielded six women candidates as compared to two by the BJP.
The sitting Congress legislator from Okhla, Parvez Hashmi, succeeded in retaining his candidature from the constituency despite the controversy over the Sep 19 Jamia Nagar shootout, in which two alleged terrorists suspected to be involved in the Sep 13 Delhi serial bombings were killed.
While two other suspected terrorists escaped, one was arrested. Delhi Police inspector M.C. Sharma was also killed in the shootout.