AAP fields Delhi MLAs from LS seats, no repeat of 2019 names: Ex-minister to Sisodia aide to Gujjar face

Days after sealing the seat-sharing agreement with its INDIA alliance partner Congress for the Lok Sabha polls, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Tuesday named its candidates for four seats from Delhi that it has got under the deal.

The AAP has fielded Somnath Bharti from the New Delhi constituency, Kuldeep Kumar from East Delhi, Sahi Ram Pehalwan from South Delhi, and Mahabal Mishra from the West Delhi seat.

Barring ex-MP Mahabal, the other three candidates are the AAP’s sitting Delhi MLAs. The party has not repeated a single candidate that it fielded in these seats in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, when the BJP had swept all seven seats in the national capital for the second consecutive time.

Here is a look at the AAP’s Delhi candidates for the upcoming polls.

Somnath Bharti, 49, has been associated with the AAP since its inception. He has been winning from the Malviya Nagar Assembly constituency for the last three consecutive terms. In the 2020 Assembly elections, he defeated the BJP and Congress candidates by a huge margin, garnering 57.97% votes.

Bharti is currently the vice-chairman of the Delhi Jal Board (DJB), who is considered popular in his constituency. He is known for promptly addressing public grievances, running dedicated WhatsApp groups for the purpose.

A lawyer, Bharti is an IIT graduate. In the first Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP government, which lasted for 49 days between December 2013 and February 2014, he served as a minister handling the portfolios of Law, Tourism, Administrative Reforms, Art and Culture.

Bharti had also been embroiled in rows over vigilantism and a domestic violence case filed against him by his wife.

In the 2019 polls, the AAP had nominated Brijesh Goyal from the New Delhi seat against the BJP’s Meenakshi