New Delhi:
Delhi BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva will not be contesting in the upcoming Assembly elections, sources told NDTV. This comes amid talks that he might be contesting in the polls.
The BJP is yet to release their first list of candidates for the elections, while the incumbent Aam Aadmi Party has released their full list.
The elections in the National Capital are scheduled for February.
The Aam Aadmi Party has been in power since 2015, securing a thumping majority twice in the Assembly elections. But, in the Lok Sabha elections, AAP has failed to win a single seat since 2014 and BJP won all seven.
The upcoming elections are being viewed as a fiercely contested battle between BJP and AAP, which is witnessing an aggressive poster war, with BJP alleging that AAP is resorting to voter fraud in a bid to retain power and the latter countering with a video poster of Mr Kejriwal labelled “GOAT” (Greatest of All Time).
On January 1, the Delhi BJP chief wrote a letter to Mr Kejriwal, asking him to give up his “bad habits of lying and cheating.”
“All of us, since our childhood, take a resolution on New Year’s Day to give up bad habits and do something good and new. Today, on the first day of New Year 2025, all the people of Delhi hope that you will bring about meaningful change in yourself by giving up your bad habits of lying and cheating,” Mr Sachdeva, the Delhi BJP chief, wrote in his letter.
He asked the former Chief Minister to apologise to the people of Delhi for promoting liquor. The exchange of letters came after Mr Kejriwal wrote a letter to RSS chief Mohan Bhagwat, raising questions related to the actions of the BJP, including whether the RSS thinks that the ruling party is “weakening democracy.”
In the heated campaign, AAP alleged that the BJP is getting voters’ names struck off the list in a desperate attempt to win the election, the BJP has accused them of getting fake voters’ names added to the list to bolster its support.
Mr Kejriwal said the BJP had officially sought the removal of names of over 11,000 votes in Shahdara Assembly segment. “We won the Assembly seat last time by a margin of 5,000 votes. If these 11,000 names were struck off, there would be no chance for a win this time. But they were caught red-handed and those names were not deleted. We are thankful to the Chief Election Officer for stopping this.”
State BJP chief Virendra Sachdeva, on the other hand, said the number of voters in Delhi saw a huge jump between the 2014 Lok Sabha polls and the Assembly election next year. The same, he said, was observed after the 2019 general election. “Who got these new voters? There are no answers. They are trying to play the same game this time. BJP is saying those who don’t live in Delhi anymore, those who have died, why should their names be on the list?”
