Thousands of devotees take art in sacred golden chariot procession of Lord Venkateswara on the auspicious occasion of ‘Vaikunta
While it is almost final that AAP leader Kumar Vishwas will contest the Amethi seat against Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi, AAP strategist Sanjay Singh could be chosen to take on Congress president Sonia Gandhi from Rae Bareli.
A section of the Aam Aadmi Party wants Sanjay Singh to contest from Sultanpur and challenge BJP MP Varun Gandhi who is likely to contest from this seat.
Sources in AAP said that though a formal announcement of candidates would be made later, senior party leaders had already decided on candidates for key constituencies.
“Shazia Ilmi is the likely candidate to challenge union minister Jitin Prasada from Dhaurhara. She also has the option of taking on union Shri Prakash Jaiswal from Kanpur. Shazia belong to an illustrious Muslim family from Kanpur and is well equipped to take on either of the two ministers,” the AAP leader said.
In Lucknow, secretary-general of the All India Engineer’s Federation Shailendra Dubey is the likely candidate. There are also reports that film maker Sudhir Misra could be asked to contest the prestigious Lucknow seat.
Another AAP leader Prashant Bhushan is the tipped off to contest from Allahabad where his family comes from.
Senior journalist Ashutosh, according to AAP sources, may be asked to contest the Ghaziabad seat against BJP president Rajnath Singh. Incidentally, Mr Ashutosh belongs to Mirzapur district in Uttar Pradesh which is adjoining the native village of BJP president Rajnath Singh.
“There are some more high profile people ready to join AAP and they may be fielded against leaders like Mulayam Singh Yadav and Dimple Yadav. We will make sure that each of the top leaders faces a tough challenge in their own constituencies,” the source said.
AAP has, so far, received over 1,350 applications for election tickets from across India and one-third of these are form Uttar Pradesh alone.
“Unlike other parties that impose candidates, our nominees will be selected by the people after thorough public scrutiny. We will withdraw candidates even at last moment if it came to light that they were involved in any corrupt or criminal activity,” said Aruna Singh, the Avadh Prant coordinator of AAP.
Ticket-seekers in UP include retired judges, former IAS and IPS officers.