New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party on Friday announced the replacement of its Mehrauli candidate Naresh Yadav with Mahender Chaudhary for the upcoming assembly polls.
Yadav, the sitting MLA from Mehrauli, was recently convicted by a Punjab court with a two-year sentence in the 2016 Quran desecration case. His sentencing was later suspended by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. AAP national general secretary (organisation) Sandeep Pathak issued the party’s fifth list on Friday.
Earlier in the day, Yadav said in a post on X that he met AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal to inform him about his decision not to contest the polls until he was acquitted by the court in the case against him. He added that he joined AAP impressed by Kejriwal’s honesty and received a lot from the party.
Delhi BJP president Virendra Sachdeva, however, charged that the Mehrauli candidate was changed due to the new candidate’s “financial power”. “Yadav was sentenced on Nov 30. Despite this, Kejriwal gave him a ticket to contest elections from Mehrauli for the third time last week. The sudden cancellation of his ticket was not surprising as changing candidates after issuing a ticket is a common practice for Kejriwal,” Sachdeva alleged.
Delhi Congress president Devender Yadav alleged that Naresh Yadav’s court sentence was an example of the criminal antecedents, activities, and corruption of AAP MLAs and leaders.
“They have only emulated their role model, Kejriwal, who was let out on conditional bail by the Supreme Court after spending several months in jail in connection with the liquor scam,” he alleged. Yadav added that Kejriwal was facing an “acute shortage” of politicians with a clean image, which was evident from AAP giving tickets to discards from other parties.
AAP has already announced all its candidates for the elections to the 70-member Delhi Assembly due to be held in Feb next year.
Earlier on June 24, 2016, torn pages of the Quran were found scattered on a road in Malerkotla in Punjab. This led to violence and the burning of vehicles by an angry mob. Four people, including Yadav, were arrested in the case.
Yadav was acquitted in the sacrilege case in March 2021 by a lower court. However, his acquittal was challenged by the complainant in the case.
