The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday announced the names of 12 more candidates, including former Patidar quota leader Alpesh Kathiriya, for the upcoming Gujarat Assembly elections.
The Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP, which has been trying to project itself as the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) main contender in Gujarat, released its 11th list of candidates on Monday. With this, it has so far declared 130 candidates for polls to the 182-member Gujarat Assembly which will be held in two phases on December 1 and 5. The counting of votes will be taken up on December 8.
Kathiriya has been given the ticket from the Patidar-dominated Varachha Road seat in Surat city, currently held by former minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA Kishor Kanani.
Kathiriya was a close aide of quota spearhead Hardik Patel, who joined the BJP earlier this year after quitting the Congress.
Another Patidar Anamat Andolan Samiti (PAAS) leader Dharmik Malaviya has been chosen for the Olpad seat in Surat, also held by the BJP.
The other AAP candidates are – BT Maheshwari (to contest from Gandhidham seat), MK Bombadiya (Danta), Ramesh Nabhani (Palanpur), Mukesh Thakkar (Kankrej), Lalji Thakor (Radhanpur), Rajendrasinh Parmar (Modasa) and Umesh Makwana (Botad).
Rahul Bhuva and Dinesh Joshi have been given the tickets for Rajkot East and Rajkot West seats respectively, while Bhimabhai Makwana has been chosen to contest from Porbandar’s Kutiyana seat, currently held by the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP). Delhi Chief Minister Kejriwal’s party had won 27 seats in the Surat Municipal Corporation last year.
