BJP picks yuva morcha chief against Kejriwal

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, January 21

With ally Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) pulling out of Delhi polls, citing differences on the CAA, the BJP late last night released its second list of 10 candidates for high-stake Assembly polls, fielding a relatively low-profile candidate, Delhi Yuva Morcha president Sunil Yadav, from the New Delhi constituency against Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

Seeking to upstage the ruling AAP, both the BJP and Congress have fielded first-timers against Kejriwal.

Congress has picked Romesh Sabharwal, 56, to take on the AAP chief. While the BJP declared 44-year-old Yadav’s candidature hours before conclusion of the nomination process, the Congress declared Sabharwal, 56, as its candidate for the seat on Monday night.

Yadav, a resident of Pratapgarh in UP, is a lawyer. Sabharwal is an old party worker who belongs to a family of government employees. He has served as chairman of Delhi Tourism.

The BJP has left three seats for the Janata Dal (U) and the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) to keep ‘poorvanchali’ voters and its Bihar allies happy. While Ram Bilas Paswan’s LJP will fight from Seemapuri, Bihar CM Nitish Kumar’s JD(U) will contest Burari and Sangam Vihar. Not everyone in the JD(U) is happy with the alliance with a “deeply perplexed” Pavan Varma seeking clarity from Nitish on the party’s ideology.

Questioning why the JD(U) was extending alliance with the BJP beyond Bihar when long-standing allies like the SAD had refused to do so, Varma today tweeted a letter seeking ideological clarity over the party decision. Referring to his “private apprehensions” on how the saffron party was leading the country, the JD(U) general secretary wrote. “I remember you confessing to me in private how the current leadership in the BJP has humiliated you. You maintained, on more than one occasion, that the BJP is leading India into a ‘dangerous space’. It was your personal view, as conveyed to me, that the BJP is destroying institutions, and that there is a need for democratic and socialist forces within the country to regroup, a task for which you actually assigned a senior party official.

“When you were leading the mahagathbandhan, you had openly made a call for RSS-mukt Bharat. These views, articulated for a sustained period, are a matter of public record,” he said.

“This is especially so at a time when the BJP, through the CAA-NPR-NRC combine, has embarked on a massive social divisive agenda aimed at mutilating the peace, harmony and stability of the country,” he added.