New Delhi, Jan 12 Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday announced Mohan Singh Bisht as its candidate for the Mustafabad seat in the upcoming Delhi Assembly elections to be held on February 5. This was part of the BJP's third list of candidates, with Bisht being the only name included.
In fact, the veteran BJP leader, currently representing Karawal Nagar in the Delhi Assembly, had voiced strong dissatisfaction with the party’s decision to field Kapil Mishra from his constituency. Bisht, who had won the Karawal Nagar seat in the 2020 Delhi elections, had slammed the BJP's move, calling it a "big mistake."
The controversy began when the BJP replaced Bisht with Mishra, a former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader, as the party’s candidate for Karawal Nagar. Bisht, who has been a key figure in Karawal Nagar politics since 1998, did not take kindly to the decision. In an outspoken statement, he declared that he would not accept the party’s decision to field Mishra and refused to contest elections from any other constituency. Instead, he vowed to file his nomination from Karawal Nagar, asserting that he would be contesting from the seat before January 17.
The decision to replace Bisht with Kapil Mishra was announced in the BJP's second list of 29 candidates, and it generated significant backlash, particularly from Bisht's supporters. The veteran leader has contested and won multiple elections from the Karawal Nagar constituency, further fueling his discontent with the sudden shift in party strategy.
Kapil Mishra, who had represented the Karawal Nagar seat on an AAP ticket in the 2015 elections, defeated Bisht back then. After his stint as a minister in the AAP government, Mishra was suspended from the party in 2017 following allegations of corruption within AAP. His dramatic exit from AAP marked a turning point, and in 2019, he joined the BJP where he made headlines with his controversial remarks regarding anti-citizenship law protests, calling protest sites "mini Pakistans".
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