Delhi civic polls: AAP releases second list of 89 candidates

The Aam Aadmi Party on Saturday released its second list comprising 89 candidates for the upcoming MCD polls.

AAP Delhi Convenor Dilip Pandey said the list, which features around 51 women, has several candidates who have been "loyal" to the party since its inception. The party's first list had 119 candidates.

The rest are likely to be named within a week, he said. The three municipal bodies -- north, south and east corporations -- having a total of 272 wards, are expected to go to polls in April. The latest list was released following a meeting of the party's top decision-making body, Political Affairs Committee (PAC), headed by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.

"The focus was largely on rewarding people who have been working dedicatedly for the party for long," Pandey said. The prominent names in the list include Aasma Masood, the wife of Masood Ali Khan who had contested the 2013 Assembly polls from Seelampur on an AAP ticket.

Krishna Kumar Rathi, fielded from the Rani Khera Ward, had contested and lost the 2013 polls on an AAP ticket as well. AAP has received over 10,000 applications from aspirants eyeing the 272 seats. Of these, 3,522 are from North MCD, 3,673 from South and 2,902 from East MCD.

The party plans to take on the BJP and the Congress by focusing on alleged financial irregularities in the civic bodies. Delhi is governed by multiple agencies and civic bodies are a crucial cog in the wheel of day-to-day governance. With the city government under its control, AAP now intends to wrest power from BJP which has been managing the civic bodies. Over the past few months, AAP has been raising issues related to alleged corruption in the MCDs.