Congress Set for Direct Contest with BJP in 45-50 Seats in Delhi Assembly Election: Sandeep Dikshit

The Congress is directly competing with the BJP on 45-50 out of the 70 Assembly seats in Delhi, but it may face a serious challenger from AAP in 8-9 constituencies, according to former MP and Congress candidate from New Delhi seat Sandeep Dikshit on Sunday.

"The AAP is battling anti-incumbency and by their own assessment they are losing at least 32 seats on which they wanted to replace their MLAs," Dikshit told IANS, ahead of the Assembly elections likely to take place early next year.

According to him, the biggest warning sign for the AAP is that this anti-incumbency is not against local MLAs alone, but even against the face of the party - Arvind Kejriwal.

Dikshit, son of three-time Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, said AAP is starting on the back foot on 35-40 Assembly seats even before the announcement of elections, so you can imagine to which level their tally may fall to when actual voting takes place.

Talking about the possibility of facing Kejriwal in the Assembly elections, Dikshit said it will be a good contest that shall give him an opportunity to question the former Chief Minister over his lack of contribution to the constituency.

"I will submit my report card as a former MP who has been in the city for 10 years and question his performance," he said, expecting a high percentage of voting in the constituency.

Talking about the debate on the Constitution in Parliament over the past two days, Dikshit said the government employed diversionary tactics by telling failure tales of other parties rather than celebrating 75 years of the statute.

Slamming Prime Minister Narendra Modi for talking little about the Constitution and speaking more on the performance of previous Congress-led governments, the Gandhi scion during a debate in Parliament.

PM Modi on Saturday tore into the Gandhi family and the Congress for repeatedly amending the Constitution, alleging that once they "tasted blood" they wanted to do it again and again.

He also accused Congress of murdering the spirit of the Constitution for personal interests, vote bank politics and display of arrogance, a charge denied by Dikshi.