BJP chief Satish Upadhyay with senior leaders Harsh Vardhan, Vijay Goel and other party MLAs at an election rally in Old Delhi on Thursday.

BJP chief Satish Upadhyay with senior leaders Harsh Vardhan, Vijay Goel and other party MLAs at an election rally in Old Delhi on Thursday. BJP chief Satish Upadhyay with senior leaders Harsh Vardhan, Vijay Goel and other party MLAs at an election rally in Old Delhi on Thursday.

The Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) inability to pitch strong candidates in over a dozen Delhi constituencies may cost the party dearly in the February 7 Assembly polls.

The BJP has fielded 19 candidates who are either first-timers or relatively lesser-known faces in their constituencies. Of these, there are 10 seats that the BJP has never won since the Delhi Assembly came into existence in 1993. The party's failure to win these seats over the past two decades has been the primary reason for its failure in grabbing power in the national Capital.

The 10 invincible seats include five reserved and remainder Muslim-dominated. The lack of prominent faces from two communities - Muslims and Dalits - has prevented BJP from registering victory in these constituencies while the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) have emerged stronger over time.

The BJP has also fielded a new face - Nupur Sharma against AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal from the prestigious New Delhi. A former DUSU president, she is locked in a triangular contest with Kejriwal and Congress' Kiran Walia.

Similarly, the BJP has been unable to project a prominent Muslim face in five minority-dominated constituencies - Okhla, Ballimaran, Seelampur, Matia Mahal and Mustafabad - where it bit the dust in the 2013 state polls. The party has fielded its lone Muslim candidate Anjuman Dahalwi from Matia Mahal against five-time MLA Shoaib Iqbal, who is contesting on a Congress ticket. The remaining first-timers are Shyam Morwal from Ballimaran, Sanjay Jain from Seelampur, Jagdish Pradhan from Mustafabad and BSP defector Brahm Singh Vidhuri from Okhla.

The saffron party is also on the back foot in the reserved constituencies as it does not have a prominent Dalit face. North Delhi Mayor Yogendra Chandolia, the only prominent Dalit leader, has been fielded from the safe seat of Karol Bagh that is the party's traditional stronghold. Such is the crisis that the BJP had to nominate former Union minister Krishna Tirath from the Patel Nagar Assembly segment immediately after she defected from the Congress.

Dalit votes had essentially helped the Aam Aadmi Party win 28 seats in the 2013 Assembly polls, and prevent BJP from getting majority. There are five reserved constituencies- Mangolpuri, Sultanpur Majra, Ambedkar Nagar, Deoli and Kondli-that have never seen saffron wave since the Assembly came into being. Similarly, the party has won from Patel Nagar, Madipur, Trilokpuri, Seemapuri and Gokalpur only once.

Other new faces thrown into the poll ring include Jitendra Mahajan (Rohtas Nagar), Karam Vir Chandel (Seemapuri), Jitendra Chaudhary (Gandhi Nagar), Hukum Singh (Kondli), Ashok Chauhan (Ambedkar Nagar) and Arvind Kumar (Deoli). Prabhu Dayal Sai is pitted against fivetime MLA Jai Kishan of the Congress from Sultanpur Majra while Surjeet will take on another Congress heavyweight Rajkumar Chauhan and former Delhi Minister Rakhi Birla of AAP from Mangolpuri reserved seat. Rajkumar Phulwana from Madipur and Gopal Jha from Burari too are first-timers.