Rajmohan Gandhi may contest from Lok Sabha poll from Delhi

NEW DELHI: Eminent author and thinker Rajmohan Gandhi is likely to contest from Delhi in the Lok Sabha elections. While a final decision has not been taken yet, Aam Aadmi Party sources said Gandhi was being considered to contest from east or south Delhi. Former Delhi CM Sheila Dikshit's son Sandeep Dikshit is the sitting MP in east Delhi while south Delhi is held by Ramesh Kumar, brother of anti-Sikh riot accused Sajjan Kumar.

AAP has already announced two candidates of the seven seats in Delhi. Former journalists Ashutosh and Jarnail Singh will contest against Kapil Sibal in Chandi Chowk and Mahabal Mishra in west Delhi respectively.

Gandhi is a research professor at the Center for South Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the US and is an academic of great renown. His joining AAP last week was seen as major coup for the party.

Gandhi, 78, was an important leader of the Janata Dal in the early 1990s. He had unsuccessfully contested against former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi from Amethi in 1989. In 1991, he had lost to Arvind Trivedi from Sabarkantha. He is the son of Mahatma Gandhi's youngest son Devdas C Rajagopalachari, freedom fighter and the last governor-general of India, was his maternal grandfather.

On joining the party, he had said he was open to contesting elections and was drawn to AAP for its single-minded focus on corruption. "It is a people's party above all. Secondly, it is a party that is fearlessly opposing corruption. These to me are the most compelling reasons. Plus the very fact that so many people who have been drawn to it have felt some kind of hope from it. I have also felt that. I have genuinely felt that here is something new; something fresh ... there is something, something with its focus on grassroots politics, with its focus against corruption. So I am quite drawn to it," he had said.