Some 852 candidates have joined the race to become a part of 70-member Delhi State Assembly.
A Tough Fight
New Delhi is set to witness basically a tough triangular fight among the city’s ruling Aam Aadmi Party, the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress Party in the assembly elections next month.
The BJP was expected to field a fresh candidate against Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Sources in the party had told Indian news agency ANI that Sunil Yadav, the BJP candidate would be replaced. But later the party said that Yadav would stand against Kejriwal. The Congress candidate is Romesh Sabharwal.
Yadav is BJP youth wing’s state president, while Congress has fielded a first-timer Romesh Sabharwal, a former National Students' Union of India president.
In 2015, Kejriwal bagged 57,213 votes in New Delhi, which was previously a Congress stronghold. In the 2013 assembly polls, Kejriwal won at the first attempt, defeating Delhi's three-time Congress chief Sheila Dikshit, who died last year.
So far, the Congress has released the list of 61 candidates, BJP has listed 67 candidates and the AAP has released a list of 70 candidates.
After announcing an alliance, BJP left two out of the remaining three seats for Janata Dal United (JDU) and one for Lok Janshakti Party (LJP).
In the triangular fight, despite having seven seats in Parliament from Delhi, the BJP has not been able to win the Delhi assembly since 1998. Opinion polls indicate that Aam Aadmi will find it difficult to retain its 67 seats.