Delhi Election 2025: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is considering fielding former Union minister Smriti Irani from the Greater Kailash assembly seat against Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) minister Saurabh Bharadwaj in the upcoming Delhi Assembly elections.
The candidature of Irani from the high-profile seat may be revealed in the last list of candidates of the BJP to be released soon.
The saffron party has held several rounds of discussions on the Greater Kailash seat and sources said that Irani's name has featured along with three other women leaders for the seat in South Delhi, according to a report in The Indian Express.
The BJP has declared 59 of the 70 candidates for the polls. The party wants a strong contender against Saurabh Bharadwaj, the AAP minister and the sitting Greater Kailash MLA, the report said.
The Delhi unit of the BJP considers Irani as someone who may fill the gap in its ranks of a charismatic leader, especially to counter AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal. Irani lost Lok Sabha election 2024 from Amethi.
“The GK seat has emerged as a very important constituency during our poll discussions. The BJP’s Delhi election in-charge, Baijayant Panda, was himself deputed by the Central Election Committee last Friday to seek the assent of the candidates being considered, including a former Delhi MP,” The Indian Express report quoted a BJP leader.
The other women candidates whose are being considered for the seat are Arti Mehra, a member of the BJP national executive and a former mayor; Shikha Rai, a sitting councillor from the GK ward, and former union minister Meenakshi Lekhi.
The proposal has also faced opposition. Some leaders have suggested against fielding ‘outsiders’ in Delhi citing 2015 assembly election, when the BJP projected former IPS officer Kiran Bedi as a CM face and lost the election badly.
Bharadwaj has won from GK in last three elections. He is one of senior AAP leaders and a minister in CM Atishi cabinet. The saffron party has already fielded prominent leaders against other senior AAP faces, including former West Delhi MP Parvesh Verma against Arvind Kejriwal in the New Delhi seat, and ex-South Delhi MP Ramesh Bidhuri against Chief Minister Atishi in Kalkaji.
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