The Aam Aadmi Party on Tuesday announced its list of 70 candidates for the February 8 Delhi Assembly polls, with Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal contesting again from New Delhi seat and his deputy Manish Sisodia from Patparganj seat.
The party has dropped 15 sitting MLAs and given tickets to a total of 24 new faces, including Atishi, Dilip Pandey and Raghav Chadha who unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
The AAP has also given ticket to five leaders who jumped ship from the Congress, including five-time MLA Shoaib Iqbal who will fight from Matia Mahal. Iqbal, who was former Deputy Speaker in Delhi Assembly, is among four Muslim candidates.
The others -- Amanatullah Khan from Okhla, Haji Yunus from Mustafabad and Imran Hussain from Ballimaran -- are sitting MLAs.
There are eight women candidates. Besides Kejriwal and his deputy, all the five other Delhi government ministers also figure in the list, released by the AAP's Political Affairs Committee on the first day of the nomination process.
The AAP's main rivals -- BJP and Congress -- are yet to announce any candidate for the polls.
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Oxford-educated Atishi, who is among the AAP's prominent faces and had lost to Gautam Gambhir in East Delhi Lok Sabha seat, will be contesting from Kalkaji while Chadha has been fielded from Rajendra Nagar and Pandey from Timarpur.
Sisodia said the AAP's PAC has approved the names of candidates for all 70 seats for the Delhi Assembly elections.
"The existing MLAs will contest elections on 46 seats. There will be new faces in place of 15 existing MLAs and nine vacant seats. There are eight women among them. In 2015, there were six women," Sisodia said.
Delhi Assembly Speaker Ram Niwas Goyal will be contesting from Shahdara and Deputy Speaker Rakhi Birla will be contesting from Mangol Puri.
A senior party leader said the candidates have been selected after close scrutiny and several surveys.
"The sitting MLAs whose performance was not up to the mark have been replaced with more deserving candidates," he said.
Kejriwal gave best wishes to the candidates and advised them not to be complacent.
"Work very hard. People have lot of faith in AAP and you. God bless," he said in a tweet.
Besides replacing 15 sitting MLAs, the party has fielded new candidates on four seats held by opposition BJP and five seats which fell vacant after the AAP MLAs defected.
The major omissions included party's chief whip in the assembly Jagdeep Singh (Hari Nagar), Surender 'Commando (Delhi Cantt) and Haji Ishraq Khan (Seelampur).
Shoaib Iqbal, who joined the AAP recently, has replaced sitting MLA Asim Ahmed Khan.
Rajkumari Dhillon, who joined AAP from Congress, will contest from Hari Nagar. She will be replacing sitting MLA Jagdeep Singh.
Four-time MLA Parlad Singh Sawhney, who also deserted Congress, will fight from Chandni Chowk.
Two-time MLA Ram Singh Netaji, who joined the party on Monday, will fight from Badarpur. He will replace sitting MLA N D Sharma