BJP fields Gautam Gambhir from East Delhi

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday announced the names of two more candidates from the national capital, fielding cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir from the East Delhi Lok Sabha constituency and re-nominating sitting MP Meenakshi Lekhi from the New Delhi seat.

Lekhi will lock horns with Congress' Ajay Maken and Brajesh Goel of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Gambhir, who replaced sitting MP Maheish Girri, will face Congress candidate Arvinder Singh Lovely and AAP's Atishi.

A veteran of 58 Tests and 147 one-day internationals, Gambhir was a key member of the Indian teams that won the World T20 in 2007 and the ODI World Cup in 2011. He formally joined the BJP on March 22.

Hailing from Rajinder Nagar, Gambhir (37) was a high-profile campaigner for Arun Jaitley in Amritsar during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. However, BJP had lost that constituency.

Since then, Gambhir has been vehemently supporting the saffron party and the Narendra Modi-led government's policies on Twitter, often drawing flak from certain quarters. On Sunday, the BJP had renominated four of its seven MPs from Delhi.

Harsh Vardhan has been renominated from Chandni Chowk while Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari will again contest from North East Delhi. Parvesh Verma, son of former Delhi Chief Minister Sahib Singh Verma, has been given ticket from West Delhi while Ramesh Bidhuri has been chosen from South Delhi.

The BJP is yet to name its candidate from North West Delhi, where sitting MP Udit Raj is reportedly unhappy for not being nominated again.

--IANS

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