Congress may field Sheila Dikshit from East Delhi - sources

The Congress is likely to announce the names of its candidates for all seven Lok Sabha seats in the national capital on Saturday and its Delhi unit president and former chief minister Sheila Dikshit may be fielded from East Delhi, sources said Friday. The central election committee (CEC) of the Congress finalised the names of its candidates for four seats Thursday.

"The list of all the seven candidates is expected to be released on Saturday," All India Congress Committee(AICC) in-charge of Delhi unit P C Chacko told PTI. Former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit's name is under "serious consideration" as the candidate from East Delhi, said a senior party leader, adding she may be fielded if her son Sandip Dikshit declines to contest. The party has also short-listed the names of former Delhi minister Yogandnand Shastri and Olympic medal winner Sushil Kumar for the South Delhi parliamentary seat.

"In view of significance of Purvanchali voters in the national capital, the party can field former MP Mahabal Mishra from West Delhi that has a sizeable population of the community belonging to Eastern UP and Bihar," he said. The party is likely to field former Union minister Kapil Sibal from Chandni Chowk, former Delhi minister Rajkumar Chouhan from North West seat, former state unit chief Ajay Maken from New Delhi and former MP J P Agarwal from North East Delhi constituency, the sources said. The sources did not rule out the possibility of an alliance with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Delhi despite leaders of both parties publicly talking tough.

As a last-ditch attempt to salvage possibility of the tie-up, the two sides may come on the table for talks, the sources said referring to Chacko's remarks at a press conference that "we are still ready (for alliance) if the AAP is willing to have an alliance in Delhi alone. We want to fight the BJP together." AAP's Rajya Sabha leader Sanjay Singh, who was holding alliance talks with the Congress, said, "Our sincerity to stop the BJP in Haryana is reflected by the fact that we became a junior partner to a four-month-old party (Jannayak Janta Party led by Dushyant Chautala) and agreed to contest only less than half the seats in the state."

The AAP was eager for an alliance with the Congress in Haryana so that the BJP could be defeated on all the 10 seats, he said. "That's why we were prepared to give Congress three seats in Delhi. But they refused an alliance," he said. The AAP formalised its tie-up with JJP in Haryana where it will contest on three seats while the latter will field candidates on the remaining seven constituencies.

(With inputs from agencies.)