Talks should not be on name but on work: Atishi

Senior AAP leader Atishi, who is in the middle of a row for dropping her surname Marlena ahead of the Lok Sabha polls, said on Saturday talks should not be on her name change but on her work.

She had been named Marlena apparently after Communist thinkers Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin.

The Aam Aadmi Party had rejected reports that it forced Atishi, party's east Delhi Lok Sabha probable, to change her last name because it was "Christian-sounding".

Responding to queries about her name change at a press conference to release the joint manifesto of AAP's student wing Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti (CYSS) and Left-wing student outfit All India Students Association (AISA), Atishi said, "I had left my surname a long time ago. I feel one should not talk about name but about the work we have been doing. The talk should be about issues like women's security, education."