Ticket seekers crowd BJP, Cong office

New Delhi, Oct 15 (UNI) Hordes of ticket seekers were seen at the offices of the Delhi Congress and the Bharatiya Janata party following the Election Commission's announcement of date of polling for the Delhi Assembly elections yesterday.

With the election commission announcing November 29 as a date for polling to 70 seats in the Delhi Legislative Assembly, offices of the state Congress and the the BJP have become a hub of activity with hundreds of ticket aspirants collecting outside to convass their candidature for various assembly seats.

The offices of the Delhi BJP and the Delhi congress located at Pandit Pant Marg and Deen Dyal Upadhyay Marg has been witnessing huge crowds of ticket seekers after the dates were announced yesterday afternoon.

Leaders of the Delhi BJP as well as the Congress are confident of finalising the list of candidates by the end of this month.

Infact, Delhi BJP Chief Harshvardhan expressed confidence that the party would release the final list of BJP candidates before Diwali.

The party, which has 20 seats in the present Assembly, hopes to increase its tally two to three fold this time riding on what it describes as ''public disenchantment with worsening law and order situation, rising prices of commodities and poor public transport situation''.

However, the recent joining of the Congress by BJP MLA Dayanand Chandela has come as a setback for the party on the eve of the elections.

The Delhi Congress also hopes to finalise its candidates for the Assembly polls by the end of this month. Infact, the party has already held several meetings of its election committee to choose the candidates.

''We hope to come up with the final list of candidates for the Assembly polls by the end of this months. Infact, selection panels have already been formed for 25 assembly seats,''DPCC chief Jai Prakash Agarwal said.

He said the criteria of selection of candidates would be their winnability and loyalty to the party.

The Congress, which has 47 seats in the present Assembly, is hoping to come back to power for a third consecutive term rising on its initiatives like regularisation of unauthorised colonies, provision of low cost housing to the poor and various development works by the Congress in Delhi over the last ten years.

The Congress got a shot in the arm with recent joining of the party by Mr Ramvir Singh Bidhuri of the Nnationalist Congress Party and Mr Chandela of the BJP.

Among other parties in the fray, the Bahujan Samaj Party has already declared its candidates for the 70 Assembly seats.

UNI AR AKJ KP1453