The Congress, late on Monday night, announced the candidature of Olympic medal-winning boxer Vijender Singh from the South Delhi Lok Sabha seat. Singh will be up against the constituency’s incumbent MP Ramesh Bidhuri of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Aam Aadmi Party’s candidate Raghav Chadha.
Earlier in the day, the party had announced its candidates for six other seats in Delhi. Former Chief Minister and state party chief Sheila Dikshit will contest the polls from the North East Delhi constituency while senior Congress leader Ajay Maken is the candidate from the New Delhi seat. Chadni Chowk MP Kapil Sibal was replaced by former MP JP Agarwal.
The AAP and the Congress were in talks to form an alliance for the larger part of the month but the two parties failed to reach an understanding for a tie-up in 18 Lok Sabha seats in Delhi, Haryana and Chandigarh. On Saturday, the AAP blamed the Congress for wasting time. However, earlier in the week, Congress President Rahul Gandhi said his party was willing to give up four seats to the AAP but blamed Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for making a U-turn.
In a tweet, Vjiender said that he had made the country proud in his boxing career. “Now it is time to do something for my countrymen and serve them,” he added. “I would like to accept this opportunity and thank the Congress, Rahul Gandhi ji and Priyanka Gandhi ji for this responsibility.”
Lok Sabha elections will be held in Delhi in the sixth phase on May 12. The last day for filing nomination papers is Tuesday. The results for all constituencies will be declared on May 23. In 2014, the BJP had swept all seven seats in the national Capital.
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