Congress on Saturday announced its first list of 54 candidates for the Delhi Assembly elections while it held back naming its nominee to take on AAP supremo and Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in New Delhi seat.
Forty of the Congress candidates who fought the 2015 Assembly polls were replaced by new faces. Ten of the 54 candidates are women while two are Muslims, even as Congress hopes to win some seats unlike it lost in all the 70 seats.
Sources said there was discussion about fielding Sheila Dikshit's daughter Latika against Kejriwal but the central leadership was not keen on this. Sonia is learnt to have asked the Delhi leadership to find a suitable candidate, who could be a celebrity, against Kejriwal.
With Congress pitting 15 years of Dikshit against Kejriwal's five years as its campaign theme, the thinking among a section in the Congress was that Latika would have been the best choice to send across the message against AAP.
Senior leaders like Ajay Maken and J P Aggarwal did not make it to the list as they refused to contest this time despite Congress president Sonia Gandhi's directions while former President Pranab Mukherjee's daughter Sharmishta Mukherjee, who is also Delhi Mahila Congress chief, too was replaced.
However, senior leaders A K Walia and Arvinder Singh Lovely, who were ministers in Sheila Dikshit government, will be fighting this time too. Walia has been shifted from Laxmi Nagar to Krishna Nagar seat from where BJP's 2015 Chief Ministerial candidate Kiran Bedi had lost while Lovely, who had joined BJP in 2017, will contest from Gandhi Nagar.
Sitting MLA Adarsh Shastri, the grandson of former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri who joined Congress on Saturday evening after AAP denied him renomination, was fielded from Dwarka while another Alka Lamba, who returned to Congress from AAP, will fight from her sitting seat Chandni Chowk.
Interestingly, Shastri will be taking on senior Delhi Congress leader Mahabal Mishra's son Vinay Kumar Mishra who joined AAP recently. The senior Mishra had unsuccessfully contested from Dwarka in 2015 though he had previously represented West Delhi Lok Sabha seat.
Krishna Tirath, who fought as BJP candidate in 2015 polls and lost, was given ticket from Patel Nagar from where she had won earlier on Congress ticket. Rajesh Lilothia, who contested from Patel Nagar, has been shifted to Mongolpuri.
Poonam Azad, wife of Delhi Campaign Committee Chairman former cricketer Kirti Azad, will fight from Sangam Vihar.
Prominent Delhi leaders like Yoganand Shastri, Naseeb Singh and Jai Kishan Sharma did not find space in the list.