Aam Aadmi Party releases first shortlist for Delhi Polls

After lots of speculation the much awaited first shortlist of Arvind Kejriwal led Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) for the upcoming Delhi Assembly election to be held in November this year was released here in Delhi today. The list for a total of 12 assembly constituencies was released by Arvind Kejriwal himself at a press conference at the Constitutional Club, Delhi. Addressing the press meet, Arvind said that, “A total of 106 persons had initially applied for candidature and a candidate screening committee was being constituted co-chaired by Manish Sisodia and Sanjay Singh”. He further added that, “The prime objective of the screening committee was to investigate about the social background of the candidates and ensure that they don’t have any past criminal records or allegations. The screening committee also ensured that no two candidates from the same family get enlisted”.

Among the 106 applied the screening committee selected a total of 44 candidates and the popular faces that flashed were of AAP national executive members Shazia IIlmi, from the R.K. Puram and Manish Sisodia from Patparganj constituencies. Briefing further about the candidates and the selection procedure Kejriwal said, “We have candidates from varied professional backgrounds including IIT engineers, lawyers, journalists, former defense personnel etc. and the most interesting part is that the shortlist also consists of some former congress and BJP workers, whose screening was done with utmost care to ensure that they previously maintained a spotless social background and were not being chased out by their respective parties for unethical work.”

From each constituency there are 3-5 probable candidates and the complete list will be on the official website of AAP for 15 days and Arvind asked the people to have a glance at the names appearing in the list and inform AAP if there’s any information or records that unfit them for candidature with proper evidence. If credible evidence of any wrong doing is received against any of the candidates, their names will be taken off the shortlist. It is to be noted that AAP had disclosed in its candidate selection process a few weeks back and after 15 days from now there would be debate among the candidates in their respective constituencies and lastly the final candidate would be selected on the basis of preferential voting by the active volunteers of that particular region.

Replying to media queries Arvind quoted that, “The final list of the first short list would come up by 15^th June’2013 and within the next one week from now the second short list is likely to be announced and the final process is expected to be completed by the end of July”

Why the final preferential voting will only be done by AAP volunteers and why the common non-volunteers are refrained from voting, is perhaps also an important question that Arvind must introspect on.

Certainly, on papers the selection procedure seems to be very much innovative and constructive one, but at the same time it’s challenging too. However, how it is actually executed and how much productive it proves to be, will be an important thing to look on in the due course of time. Lastly, how the voters actually anticipate to the process will be interesting to find out.

By - Shamim Zakaria