The Congress Thursday released its first list of 21 candidates for the upcoming Delhi Assembly polls as it fielded ex-MP Sandeep Dikshit from New Delhi, setting up a potential contest between him and AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal.

Former Delhi chief minister Kejriwal is the sitting MLA from New Delhi. If he decides to retain the seat, it would make for a very interesting contest as it was in this assembly segment that the AAP convenor had defeated three-time chief minister and Sandeep’s mother Sheila Dikshit in 2013.

The Congress also fielded Delhi Congress chief Devender Yadav from Badli, ex-Delhi minister Haroon Yusuf from Ballimaran, ex-Delhi Congress chief Chaudhary Anil Kumar from Patparganj, national spokesperson Ragini Nayak from Wazirpur and Adarsh Shastri from Dwarka.

Among the other candidates, Ali Mahndi will fight from Mustafabad, Abdul Rehman from Seelampur, Rohit Chaudhry from Nangloi Jat and Praveen Jain from Shalimar Bagh.

Aruna Kumari has been fielded from Narela, Mangesh Tyagi from Burari, Shivani Singhal from Adarsh Nagar, Jai Kishan from Sultanpur Majra (SC), Mudit Agarwal from Chandni Chowk, PS Bawa from Tilak Nagar, Anil Bhardwaj from Sadar Bazar, Abhishek Dutt from Kastuba Nagar, Jay Prakash from Ambedkar Nagar (SC) and Garvit Singhvi from Greater Kailash.

The list was released soon after the Congress’ top leadership Thursday cleared the names of the 21 candidates for the assembly elections.

At a meeting of the party’s central election committee chaired by Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, top leaders from Delhi and CEC members discussed the names of nominees and gave nod to 21 candidates.

Former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi, CEC members Ambika Soni, Salman Khurshid, T S Singh Deo and Mushusudan Mistry were among those present at the meeting. Delhi Congress chief Devendra Yadav was also present during the deliberations.

Qazi Nizamuddin, the in-charge of the party’s affairs in Delhi, said, “In the last 10 years, Delhi has suffered a lot. The Centre and the Delhi government have been blaming each other for the bad conditions here.

“People have been suffering the consequences and they are now hell-bent on teaching these two governments a lesson,” he said after the CEC meeting.

Yadav said, “All categories have been taken care of in our list. You will also get to see new and young faces. I am happy that our leadership has held discussions with everyone.”

The Congress and AAP were earlier toying with the idea of holding a pre-poll alliance, but top leaders of both the parties, including Arvind Kejriwal and Yadav, have been openly saying that they will contest the Delhi polls alone and there will be no tie-up.