Lok Sabha elections: Delhi set for May 12 battle; Gautam Gambhir, Vijendra Singh in fray

New Delhi, Apr 23: Both the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Congress took some key decisions regarding the candidates for Delhi which is going to polls on May 12. The BJP had won from all the seven Lok Sabha seats of Delhi in 2014 elections and the party has so far announced candidates from six seats for 2019 polls.

The BJP on Monday fielded former cricketer Gautam Gambhir from the East Delhi constituency and renominated Meenakshi Lekhi from the New Delhi seat, but suspense prevailed on party's candidate from North-West Delhi.

Union Environment Minister and Chandni Chowk MP Harsh Vardhan, Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari (MP from North East Delhi), West Delhi MP Parvesh Verma and South Delhi MP Ramesh Bidhuri will contest from their constituencies.

The Congress has announced its candidates for all seven seats of the national capital. The party had already announced candidates for six seats, and today the Congress decided to field boxer Vijendra Singh from South Delhi seat where he would take on BJP's Ramesh Bidhuri and AAP's Raghav Chaddha. Congress is hoping that Singh will be able to garner massive support in the constituency, which has a large number of Jat and Gurjar voters.

Former Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit is the Congress candidate from Nort East Lok Sabha constituency and the former Delhi unit chief Ajay Maken will contest from New Delhi.Other Congress candidates in Delhi are JP Aggarwal from Chandni Chowk, Arvinder Singh Lovely from East Delhi, Mahabal Mishra from West Delhi and Rajesh Lilothia from North West Delhi, a reserved seat.

Gambhir has replaced Maheish Girri as the party's candidate and will take on Arvinder Singh Lovely of the Congress and Atishi of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Lekhi is pitted against AAP's Brajesh Goel and Ajay Maken of the Congress. Suspense, however, prevailed over party's candidature from North-West Delhi.

North-West Delhi is a reserved seat and the sitting MP is BJP's Udit Raj who is also seen a one of the important Dalit leaders of the saffron party.

The AAP has already named its seven candidates in the national capital and party's West Delhi candidate Balbir Singh Jakhar had filed his nomination papers on Thursday. Six candidates of the AAP filed their nominations on Monday for the upcoming Lok Sabha polls in Delhi.

The six AAP candidates who filed nominations on April22 are Pankaj Gupta from Chandni Chowk, Atishi from East Delhi, Gugan Singh from North West Delhi, Raghav Chadha from South Delhi, Dilip Pandey fromNorth East candidate Pandey and Brajesh Goel from New Delhi.

BJP's Harsh Vardhan, Manoj Tiwari and sitting party MP Parvesh Verma filed their nomination on Monday for the Chandni Chowk, North East Delhi and West Delhi constituencies respectively. Sitting South Delhi MP Ramesh Bidhuri will file his nomination on Tuesday.

All the seven parliamentary seats in Delhi will go to polls on Phase 6 of the Lok Sabha Elections on May 12. In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, BJP won all the seven seats in Delhi.