BJP yet to decide on candidates for remaining 13 seats

New Delhi, Nov 3 (UNI) The BJP is yet to decide on candidates for the remaining 13 seats of the Delhi Legislative Assembly elections to which are scheduled to be held on November 29.

While announcing party candidates for 53 Assembly seats on Saturday, with four seats set aside for the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), BJP general secretary Arun Jaitley had said candidates for the remaining 13 seats would be announced in a day or two.

However, party sources said it was yet to finalise the candidates for the 13 seats which are Chandni Chowk, Matia Mahal, Matiala, Vikaspuri, Laxminagar, Seelampur, Mustafabad, Burari, Nangloi Jat, Sadar Bazar, Patparganj, Najafgarh and Trilokpuri.

The list of 53 candidates announced released by Mr Jaitley after a meeting of the party's Central election committee, included BJP's chief Ministerial candidate Vijay Kumar Malhotra from the Greater Kailash seat, Delhi BJP Chief Harshvardhan from Krishna Nagar, Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly Jagdish Mukhi from Janak Puri, BJP vice president Anita Arya from Patel Nagar and Saheb Singh Chauhan from Ghonda.

At the meeting chaired by party president Rajnath Singh and attended by senior party leader and Party's Prime Ministerial candiadte L K Advani, it was also decided to earmark four seats for the SAD.

The four seats from where the BJP will have seat sharing with the Akali Dal are Jangpura, Shahdara, Adarsh Nagar and Rajouri Garden.

Talking to UNI here, SAD Delhi state president Manjit Singh said the party had decided on candidates for the four seats.

Ravinder Singh Khurana will be the party nominee from Adarsh Nagar, Jatinder Singh Shunty would contest from Shahdara, Avtar Singh Hit from Rajouri Garden assembly segment while Sardar Manjinder Singh Sirsa will be the party nominee from Jangpura.

Mr Singh said the party would contest the November 29 assembly polls on the Akali Dal ticket.

The seat sharing this time has been on the lines of the last assembly election except one change -- Shahdara instead of Gandhi Nagar. Though the Akalis had been pitching for Tilak Nagar, the BJP leadership agreed to part with Jangpura, Rajouri Garden, Adarsh Nagar and Shahdara assembly constituencies.

UNI AR AKJ AS1829