The Aam Aadmi Party has announced its first list of probable candidates from Maharashtra for the Lok Sabha elections. Some of the big names to figure on the list include former CEO of Royal Bank of Scotland Meera Sanyal and Mumbai-based Aam Aadmi Party activist Mayank Gandhi. The list was released late last night.
Sanyal, who joined AAP recently and is also a part of the party's recently formed committee on economic policy, has been named as probable candidate from Mumbai South constituency. She contested from the same constituency in 2009 as an independent and lost to the Congress's Milind Deora.
AAP member Mayank Gandhi has been declared as possible candidate from North-west Mumbai.
Of the 48 Parliamentary seats in Maharashtra, the party has released the names of probable candidates from Mumbai, Nagpur, Thane, Pune and Nashik. For now, the party has only released names from the urban areas. As far as rural support is concerned, the party seems confident and in an earlier conversation with Firstpost, Gandhi had said, "The support in rural Maharashtra has been tremendous. I myself was surprised by the kind of support our meetings have got."
Arvind Kejriwal. AP
Vijay Pandhare, a former chief engineer with the Maharashtra government, has been named as probable candidate from Nashik. Pandhare is the original whistle-blower in Maharashtra's irrigation scam, having written letters to Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan and Governor K Sankaranarayanan in February and then in May 2012 seeking a CBI probe into inflated cost estimates and other serious irregularities in dam-building contracts in the state. Deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar had to resign briefly over the allegations, following which Pandhare was provided police protection.
Of the seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi, the party released the names of probable candidates for six seats, although surprisingly it does not include the names of any senior leaders. It is yet to declare any name from North-west Delhi constituency. The probable candidates in Delhi include Mohammad Mursaleen and Mohit Beniwal for Chandani Chowk seat, Dev Das Goswami and Irvinder Singh for West-Delhi seat and Mamta Sharma and Niranjan Koli from South Delhi Lok Sabha seat.
It is still unclear whether Arvind Kejriwal will be contesting the Lok Sabha elections. Yesterday at a press conference to discuss the AAP government's achievement, Kejriwal chose not to answer questions on the issue of Lok Sabha elections.
Party sources said that around 65 applicants were vying for each Lok Sabha seat in Delhi.
The party has released list of probable candidates from all the 10 parliamentary seats in Haryana, which included Satish Yadav from Gurgaon and Amit Pathak from Faridabad. The party has asked people to give feedback on the probable candidates.
"We are in the process of screening the candidates and we will keep updating the list in coming days. The list will be finalised by the Political Affairs Committee after seeing feedback for the candidates," a party source said.
The party has not yet put out any list for the states of Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, even though it has claimed that it has strong support in all three states. Where UP is concerned, the only prominent name for now is that of Kumar Vishwas who is likely to contest from Amethi against Congress' Rahul Gandhi.
"The belt from Gujarat to Odisha has witnessed a steady decline of a strong second party as Congress is gradually losing its popular support. Our aim is to fill the void and emerge as the second largest party in these BJP or NDA ally states," Yogendra Yadav told Firstpost.
AAP is likely to go all out in the Lok Sabha elections, as a senior party leader had indicated to Firstpost. However given the overwhelming response the party has receive, the final list process is likely to take time.
With inputs from PTI
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