New Delhi: The announcement of dates of polling for the 70-member Delhi Assembly is likely to be made on Friday. A meeting of the 'full' Election Commission will be held tomorrow to discuss the preparations for the electoral exercise.
The elections will be an opportunity for the resurgent BJP, which has been on a winning streak under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in various Assembly polls since its spectacular success in the Lok Sabha polls last May, to seek a clear verdict unlike the fractured decision of 2013 polls in Delhi.
The BJP, which had then faced the polls under Modi as the chief campaigner for the party, could not get a majority in Delhi unlike the stunning success it had scored in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Chhattisgarh which also went to polls then.
The AAP, which made its debut in Delhi in the last polls in 2013, emerged the largest party with 31 MLAs, followed by AAP which got 28 MLAs.
It managed to form a government with the support of Congress (8 MLAs) and JD(U) (one) but Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal resigned in 49 days making it a short-lived government.
The AAP has announced candidates for all the 70 seats including that of Kejriwal who will seek reelection from New Delhi.
The party made a disastrous showing in the last year's Lok Sabha polls except for the four seats it had won in Punjab.
The Congress, on the other hand, is still reeling under the shattering blow it had received in the Lok Sabha elections and has not been able to put up any good showing in the Assembly polls in Maharashtra, Haryana, Jharkhand and Jammu and Kashmir that followed.
It has already announced candidates for 24 seats, eight of them sitting MLAs and 12 of them who came second in the last elections.
The partial list is in itself is a break with the past when Congress would come out with its candidates list only after the announcement of the election schedule.
The Central Election Committee of the party is slated to meet soon and finalise the rest of the candidates. The second list may be the final list.
The BJP is yet to come out with its list.
(With PTI inputs)
