Aam Aadmi Party to contest assembly by-elections in Gujarat

Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP) Gujarat unit said here today that it has decided to field its candidates for seven Assembly seats where by-polls will be held alongwith the Lok Sabha elections.
"AAP will field its contestants from seven Assembly seats during the upcoming elections," said AAP Gujarat's spokesperson Harshil Nayak said.
"We will field contestants from Rapar and Abdasa of Kutch district, Lathi of Amreli district, Visavadar and Somnath of Junagadh district, Himmatnagar of Sabarkantha district, as well as Mandvi assembly seat in Surat district," he said.
"By-polls in most of the seats have to be conducted as Congress MLAs from those constituencies joined the BJP, while Visavadar seat of Junagadh has been vacated by senior leader and former Gujarat chief minister Keshubhai Patel as he left active politics," he said.

AAP has also alleged that Keshubhai Patel has vacated the seat keeping his son Bharat's political career in mind and that his son returned to the BJP in February.
"Assembly by-elections will be held along with Lok Sabha elections on April 30. When both the parties field their candidates, we have also decided to do so," AAP's state convener Sukhdev Patel told PTI.

"We do not want to let voters remain confused between BJP or Congress. So we are giving them the option of AAP," Patel said.
"BJP committed an unethical blunder by taking Congress MLAs who were sent to the Assembly by the people and we are committed to expose these MLAs," he said.

"The next Assembly election is in 2017 and this is prior preparedness, so that we can also show our strength and they (BJP and Congress) will also realise our strength," Patel said.
"As soon as people send their nominations to the Delhi leadership and party leaders select candidates, we will declare candidates for the Gujart Assembly by-elections," Patel said.