New Delhi:

Delhi’s former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia will contest the upcoming Assembly polls from Jangpura and civil services teacher Avadh Ojha is Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) candidate from east Delhi’s Patparganj, currently held by Mr Sisodia.

AAP today released its second list of 20 candidates for the Delhi Assembly polls, due early next year. Last month, it released a list with names of 11 candidates. The ruling party is yet to announce candidates for 39 seats in the 70-member Assembly.

The Jangpura seat has been with AAP since 2013 when former Delhi Assembly Speaker Maninder Singh Dhir won it. When Mr Dhir switched to the BJP, AAP fielded Praveen Kumar who won the seat in the 2015 and the 2020 polls. This time, the party has chosen the seat for Mr Sisodia. The former Deputy Chief Minister, who was arrested in a money laundering case linked to Delhi’s now-scrapped liquor policy, is out on bail. He has said he would join the government only after the verdict in the “people’s court”.

Thanking Mr Kejriwal and AAP for the opportunity to contest from Jangpura, Mr Sisodia said Patparganj is the “heart of the education revolution in Delhi”. “When Avadh Ojha joined the party, I felt Patparganj would be the best seat for a teacher,” he said, adding that he was glad to “hand over the responsibility”. “I am now ready to do in Jangpura what I did for education and development in Patparganj. From Patparganj to Jangpura, my pledge is firm: to make Delhi better,” he posted on X.

Praveen Kumar, the current Jangpura MLA, has been accommodated in the Janakpuri seat. 

For Avadh Ojha, who joined the AAP earlier this month, Patparganj is a safe seat. The east Delhi constituency is seen as an AAP stronghold that has been represented by Mr Sisodia since 2013. 

Significantly, none of the sitting MLAs in these 21 seats have been repeated this time. AAP is pushing hard for a fourth term and the move to change sitting MLAs appears to be aimed at countering anti-incumbency or complaints against a specific legislator in his/her constituency.    

New Delhi:

Renowned UPSC teacher and motivational teacher Avadh Ojha joined the Aam Aadmi Party in New Delhi on Monday, months ahead of the Delhi Assembly polls.

He was welcomed into the party fold by party chief Arvind Kejriwal and former Delhi minister Manish Sisodia. “His experience and perspective will give a new direction to our education policy. Inspired by our policies and work on education, he has joined the party,” Mr Kejriwal said at a press conference held to announce Mr Ojha’s entry into politics.

While Mr Ojha said his aim of entering politics is to work towards the development of education, Mr Sisodia said his entry into the party will “give our education mission many times more speed”.

According to his website, Mr Ojha has decades of experience in mentoring “thousands of students, many of whom have gone on to hold key positions in the Indian civil services. His approach to coaching does not just aim at helping students crack the civil service exams, but also shaping them into well-rounded individuals who can take on the challenges that come with serving in the Indian bureaucracy”.