LS polls: Congress fields Sibal in Chandni Chowk, Maken in New Delhi

New Delhi: Congress released its much anticipated third list of candidates for Lok Sabha elections on Tuesday where it announced its nominees for Delhi seats.

Congress renominated five sitting MPs -- Kapil Sibal, Sandeep Dikshit, J P Agarwal,

Krishna Tirath and Ajay Maken -- for the Lok Sabha polls in the national capital while deferring its decision on the remaining two seats.

Union minister Sibal will seek re-election for the third term from Chandni Chowk constituency which is likely to witness an interesting fight with BJP fielding its Delhi unit chief Harsh Vardhan and AAP nominating journalist-turned- politician Ashutosh.

Polling in Delhi will be held on April 10.

In the 2004 Lok Sabha polls, Sibal won defeating BJP's Smriti Irani. In 2009, he beat BJP's Vijender Gupta.

Sitting MP Maken, who won unopposed the US-style primaries Congress had introduced to decide its candidates in select constituencies, will fight from the prestigious New Delhi seat which is likely to witness a triangular contest.

BJP has fielded party spokesperson Meenakshi Lekhi while AAP has given ticket to another journalist-turned-politician Ashish Khetan, founder of investigative website Gulail.com.

In East Delhi constituency, Dikshit, son of former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit will try to retain the seat for the second term. He will face challenge from AAP's Rajmohan Gandhi, grandson of Mahatma Gandhi and BJP's Mahesh Girri, who has been associated with Sri Sri Ravi Shankar's Art of Living.

The Aam Aadmi Party had won five out of 10 assembly seats which come under the East Delhi Lok Sabha seat. Congress and BJP had bagged two seats each.

Congress has fielded Tirath from Northwest constituency which she had won in 2004 and 2009 Lok Sabha polls.

In the 2004 elections, she had defeated BJP's Anita Arya while in 2009 elections, she trounced BJP's Meera Kanwaria. BJP has fielded Dalit leader Udit Raj from the constituency.

Though AAP had fielded Mahendra Singh from the seat, today it said he had withdrawn his candidature and Mangolpuri MLA Rakhi Birla is likely to be fielded in his place.

(With inputs from PTI)