The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the upcoming Delhi Assembly election is planning to field rebel AAP leader Kapil Mishra against the Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal from New Delhi assembly constituency, party leaders told news agency IANS.
“Mishra’s candidature as a probable candidate against Kejriwal from New Delhi constituency has been discussed,” said a senior BJP leader. He further said that there has been no final decision on the candidate yet. Some party leaders want a senior leader to challenge the AAP national convener in Delhi, he said.
However, another party leader said that Mishra wants to contest from karawal Nagar constituency where he won in 2015 Assembly election on AAP’s ticket.
BJP is eyeing a comeback as it was restricted to three out of 70 seats in the 2015 Assembly election.
In order to kick-up for the polls, BJP president Amit Shah held a night-long core group party meeting on Sunday night that ended at 3am. The meeting was attended by party’s working president JP Nadda, General Secretary (Organisation) BL Santosh, Delhi in-charge Prakash Javadekar, state president Manoj Tiwari among others.
A party source told IANS that the party will release a list of over 55 candidates by January 16.
Delhi will go to polls on February 8 and the counting and declaration of results will be done on February 11.
In the last Assembly election which was held in 2015, AAP bagged 67 out of 70 seats.