Atishi Marlena, the former education advisor to Deputy CM Manish Sisodia, has been named as Aam Aadmi Party’s Lok Sabha candidate for the East Delhi constituency, IANS reports. Marlena, who has been projected by the party as the brain behind massive education reforms in Delhi, is considered close to Deputy CM Sisodia and CM Arvind Kejriwal. Marlena is the first candidate announced by AAP for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
Atishi served as an advisor from July 2015 to April 17, 2018 when she was sacked from her post by a Union government order. She has also been a party face in television debates and was also involved in drafting the manifesto of the party in the 2015 Delhi Assembly elections. The AAP Lok Sabha hopeful will now operate out of the newly inaugurated office on Vikas Marg near the Laxmi Nagar metro station.
Atishi said on the occasion: “By naming this road Vikas Marg, did people get schools, universities or hospitals? For real development, AAP has to be strengthened and Delhi’s seven Lok Sabha seats have to be won by AAP.”
Atishi, an alumunus of Oxford University and Delhi’s St Stephens College, has been praised by the party for her efforts to reform Delhi’s education sector.