BJP’s ticket aspirants make beeline for Delhi

With the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) central election committee meeting scheduled for February 27, all top three contenders for the city Lok Sabha seat of BJP - city unit chief Sanjay Tandon and former MPs Satya Pal Jain and Harmohan Dhawan - were camping in Delhi on Tuesday.

According to sources, while Dhawan and Jain left for Delhi on Monday, Tandon left for the capital on Tuesday afternoon. Jain also had to appear in a case against Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convener Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday at a Delhi court.

City party leaders were divided on whether city Lok Sabha candidate would be declared after Thursday’s meeting or not.

Some were of the view that party intended to commission more surveys before zeroing in on any candidate due to infighting among the top contenders. However, as all three leaders were in Delhi just ahead of the crucial meeting, local leaders were hoping that a decision would be taken in Thursday’s meeting.

Earlier this month, state election committee of Chandigarh had authorised party affairs incharge Aarti Mehra and general secretary Ajay Jamwal to recommend names of their choice before the central election committee.

It is learnt that both these leaders zeroed in on these three leaders out of the 19 applicants.
The three leaders have been making all efforts to plead their case before the party high command.

According to sources, four district presidents of the party - Ravi Kant Sharma from district 2, BC Puri from district 1, Shakti Devshali from district 4, and Devi Singh from district-3, had also paid visits to Delhi last week to meet top leaders on party candidate for Lok Sabha seat in Chandigarh.