Pollster Yogendra Yadav, former banker Meera Sanyal, poet-turned activist Kumar Viswas and former journalist Ashutosh are among 20 candidates who will contest the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections on the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) ticket.
The party announced the first list of candidates on Sunday. Yadav will fight from Gurgaon, while Sanyal will be fielded from South Mumbai, Viswas from Amethi and Ashutosh from Delhi’s Chandni Chowk.
Although no other party has announced its candidates, it is expected that Yadav will face Rao Inderjit Singh (earlier with the Congress, now with the BJP), Viswas will challenge Congress Vice-President Rahul Gandhi, Sanyal will take on Milind Deora (Congress) and Ashutosh to contest against Kapil Sibal (Congress).
The Arvind Kejriwal-led party has also fielded noted activist Medha Patkar from Mumbai (North-East), where her opponent is expected to be Sanjay Dina Patil of the Nationalist Congress Party.
AAP’s Mukul Tripathi will take on Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid for the Farrukhabad seat, while senior advocate HS Phoolka will contest from Ludhiana against Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari.
Somendra Dhaka, a peasant leader, will contest from Baghpat in Uttar Pradesh, a seat represented by Union Minister and Rashtriya Lok Dal chief Ajit Singh.
Anjali Damania, convener of the Maharashtra unit of the AAP, will contest against senior BJP leader Nitin Gadkari from Nagpur.
The list, which came two days after Kejriwal quit as Delhi Chief Minister, has names of candidates for two seats in Delhi, seven in Uttar Pradesh, six in Maharashtra, and one each in Haryana, Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh and Punjab.
The party, however, is yet to announce its candidate for Rae Bareli, which is represented by UPA Chairperson and Congress President Sonia Gandhi.
“Our main motto is to send honest people to Parliament. We do not want to send criminals, people with dynastic background. We will soon release the list of candidates for other seats,” senior party leader Manish Sisodia told newspersons here.