Opposition BJP and Cong come up with first timers against Kejriwal in New Delhi seat

Seeking to upstage the ruling AAP in the Delhi Assembly polls, both the BJP and Congress have fielded first timers against Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal in the New Delhi Assembly constituency.

BJP's Delhi unit Yuva Morcha president Sunil Yadav and Congress's Romesh Sabharwal, an old partyman having association with the National Students Union(NSUI), will take on the AAP chief.

Both the opposition parties made hectic efforts to come up with their formidable challengers against Kejriwal, who is seeking re-election on the New Delhi seat, but failed to come up with any surprise.

While the BJP declared forty-four-year-old Yadav's candidature hours before conclusion of the nomination process for the polls on Tuesday, the Congress declared Sabharwal, 56, as its candidate for the seat on Monday night.

Yadav asserted that he will give a "good fight" to the chief minister and said he was a local while his adversary was an "outsider".

"I live in New Delhi, Kejriwal does not live here. He is an outsider and is hardly available to the people of the constituency. I am here to defeat him with the love and support of the people," Yadav said.

Yadav, a resident of Pratapgarh in UP, is a lawyer by profession.

Delhi BJP president Manoj Tiwari said his party had good chances of winning from the New Delhi constituency dominated by government employees.

"He is not a lightweight candidate. New Delhi suits the BJP as voters in the constituency are strong supporters of the BJP," he said.

Sabharwal is an old party worker who belongs to a family of government employees, a Delhi Congress leader said.

His mother was a teacher and his father a clerk. Associated with the Congress since late 1980s', Sabharwal has also served as chairman of the Delhi Tourism department.

Sabharwal has held different posts in NSUI and the Indian Youth Congress in the past. In 1998, he was expected to be the Congress candidate from then Gole Market(now New Delhi) constituency, but was replaced by Sheila Dikshit.