Delhi Assembly Elections 2025: Game on with Kejriwal re-contesting; Congress drops candidates' list while Smriti Irani meets BJP veterans

New Delhi: With less than two months left for Assembly elections, Delhi's winter chill is slowly giving way to political heat as AAP, BJP and Congress are sharpening their tools by announcing candidates or searching for right combinations.

AAP has put the final nail on the coffin as far as an alliance with Congress is concerned by announcing candidates for all 70 seats. Its fourth and final list of 38 candidates on Sunday confirmed that former Chief Minister Arivind Kejriwal will re-contest from New Delhi while Chief Minister Atishi will stand from Kalkaji.

BJP, which is usually fast on getting off the blocks, is yet to name even one candidate though speculation about senior leaders like Smriti Irani and former MPs like Parvesh Verma and Ramesh Bidhuri as potential candidates are doing the rounds.

Irani, who lost the Lok Sabha elections in Amethi, last week visited veteran leaders V K Malhotra and Vijay Goel and installed special nameplates at their residences.

Verma is learnt to have been told to be prepared to fight from the New Delhi seat against Kejriwal.

The BJP was to start a ‘Parivartan Yatra’ on December 8 with Delhi BJP chief Virender Sachdeva at the helm but it has been postponed. Apparently, the party is looking at going to the elections with one key face and does not want to create confusion in the minds of voters.

It is to be seen whether the BJP will field a couple of MPs, who recently won the Lok Sabha elections.

Settling themselves early in the battlefield, AAP has announced candidates for all 70 seats after benching 21 sitting MLAs and finding new faces for three seats where its MLAs deserted. A few of dropped MLAs were replaced by their family members while around a dozen candidates are turncoats.

All the ministers in the Atishi-led government are fighting from their sitting seats and Kejriwal, after a meeting of AAP's Political Affairs Committee, made it clear that he is not shifting his seat like former Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia.

Kejriwal would be taking on Congress' Sandeep Dikshit, a former MP and son of late Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit who he defeated, and probably BJP’s Verma.

Congress, riding on the response it got from the Delhi Nyay Yatra, has announced candidates in 21 seats which it considers “strong” for the party. The major attraction is Dikshit’s candidature while Delhi Congress chief Devender Yadav and senior leaders are also in the list.

Parties are expecting the Election Commission to announce the schedule for the election next week. AAP and BJP have already raised concerns about deletion of voters from electoral rolls.