Arvind Kejriwal confirms that he will contest the Delhi polls from New Delhi seat | India News – Times of India

NEW DELHI: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal on Friday confirmed that he would contest the upcoming elections from New Delhi constituency.
The AAP supremo’s confirmation comes amid speculation that he might consider exchanging his seat ahead of the Delhi elections, especially after the party’s second-highest leader Manish Sisodia opted to contest from Jangpura in instead of from his current constituency Patparganj.
Kejriwal also claimed that the match in the New Delhi Constituency will be a battle between the “CM’s son and the common man”.
He was referring to the Congress candidate Sandeep Dikshitthe son of three-time CM Sheila Dikshit, who will contest against the AAP supremo. The BJP may field Parvesh Verma, the son of former chief minister Sahib Singh Verma, against him.
Sandeep Dikshit has emerged as a fierce critic of AAP and Kejriwal. After AAP and Congress failed to win Lok Sabha seats in Delhi as participants in the INDIA bloc, he noted that such partnerships would not help Congress regain its foothold in Delhi. The Congress is keen to re-establish its presence in Delhi after failing to secure seats in the previous two Assembly elections of 2015 and 2020.
Previously, the New Delhi seat was occupied by Sheila Dikshit from 1999 to 2013, before Arvind Kejriwal wrested the constituency from her in his poll debut the same year.
“There will be no change. I will participate from the seat of New Delhi and Prime Minister Atishi from Kalkaji,” he said while addressing the India Today event.
Kejriwal said that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is contesting the Delhi Assembly elections in his name and asserted that his party will return to power for the fourth time with a good mandate.
“These elections are being fought in the name of Kejriwal and I will become the chief minister of Delhi,” Kejriwal said, adding that Chief Minister Atishi was a “temporary” arrangement to fill the gap left by his arrest in the excise case. .
Reacting to the controversy and the BJP’s allegations of him living in a ‘Sheeshmahal’ as chief minister, Kejriwal said the bungalow at 6 Flagstaff Road in north Delhi was meant for the chief minister of Delhi.
“I lived there as chief minister of Delhi. If anyone else becomes chief minister of Delhi, he will live there. I did not build the bungalow. It was built by the PWD,” he said, pointing out that he used to do so . lived in a slum when he was an activist.
A few days ago, while sharing the video of the renovated Delhi CM’s residence, which was revamped by Arvind Kejriwal, BJP local unit chief Virendra Sachdeva called the residence a ‘museum of corruption’, a comment that the AAP dismissed it as ‘baseless propaganda’.
The BJP has stepped up its attack on Kejriwal over the controversial renovation, saying, “It is the ‘sheesh mahal’ that he wanted to hide from the people of Delhi.”