Congress considers new face from West Delhi

With the BJP declaring MLA and former Leader of Opposition in Assembly Jagdish Mukhi as its candidate from the West Delhi constituency, Congress MLAs Mahabal Mishra and Mukesh Sharma have started lobbying even harder for a ticket. Their contention: since all three of them are four-time MLAs, each claims he can give a close fight to Mukhi. Congress insiders, however, indicate that the party is considering introducing a lesser-known face in the constituency. The candidate now expected to get the ticket is AICC member Brij Mohan Bhama, who missed filing his nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha elections in 2004 after his flight to Lucknow was delayed due to a technical snag.

A resident of Rajinder Nagar, Bhama had earlier contested the Assembly elections in 1993 from the Gole Market seat against the BJP’s Kirti Azad. Having vanished from the electoral map of Delhi, he re-appeared last year when he was seen conducting a prayer session for Obama’s victory in the US elections.

Protest, but no audience

IT’S raining brickbats for BJP leaders from supporters of aspirants whose ticket hopes were dashed with the party’s list of Lok Sabha candidates on Thursday. After Parvesh Verma’s supporters protested outside L K Advani’s residence on Friday, 2,000-odd supporters of Mayor Arti Mehra took their protest to the BJP office on Ashoka Road on Saturday evening. Their demand: A “reason” for selecting Vijay Goel over Mehra. The only hitch: It was a Saturday, the BJP office was shut, and the protestors had no audience!