As the electoral scene in Delhi is starting to look like a direct fight between the BJP and the AAP, the Congress jumped into the picture by announcing its first list of candidates on Thursday.

It could be for the first time in the recent past that the Congress has announced candidates for an election much ahead of the announcement of the poll schedule.

Both the BJP and the AAP are engaged in a direct fight in the Delhi Assembly election.

The AAP has announced a list of 59 candidates so far. Party supremo Arvind Kejriwal will contest from the New Delhi seat.

The Grand Old Party, which even lost the Opposition space in the 2013 Delhi elections, is trying to make a comeback under the leadership of Arvinder Singh Lovely, the new DPCC president.

Lovely, being projected as the ‘face’ of the party’s campaign, will try his luck from the Gandhinagar seat for the fifth time.

About a dozen candidates have got re-nomination in the first list of 24 candidates. The Congress has just seven members in the 70-member Delhi Assembly at present.

The Congress’ strategy is to win back a section of the minority and Dalit votes from the AAP. However, the party is facing sever organisational issues on the ground.

“We will have to give prominence for fresh faces in the Assembly elections. The youth is going away from us,” a DPCC functionary told BusinessLine .

The list, however, has not declared the candidate for the New Delhi seat, which was previously represented by former CM Sheila Dikshit. The party had already declared that Dikshit will not be in the fray this time.

New on the list Former Mayor Satbir Singh and Sachin Bidhuri are new faces the list. Matia Mahal MLA Shoaib Iqbal will contest from the seat in a Congress ticket.

Former Ministers Harun Yusuf, Raj Kumar Chouhan and AK Walia and senior leaders Devendra Yadav, Jaikishan, Prahlad Singh Sawahney, Asif Mohammed Khan, Mateen Ahmed and Hasan Ahmed have been given ticket this time, too.

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