NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party is not in a position to stop the BJP juggernaut in Delhi in the forthcoming Assembly elections. The party has over the months lost considerable goodwill with its old constituencies, like the auto rickshaw wallas for instance, quite vocal in their criticism of the party and its leader Arvind Kejriwal.

Non performance of elected legislators has become a major issue as well, with the AAP MLAs barely visible in their constituencies.

Aware of the growing criticism, AAPmi Party is all set to drop six of its sitting MLAs for “poor performance” and revamp 50% of the candidates list, according to sources.

The Citizen learnt that out of 70 candidates who contested the 2013 assembly elections, only 37 will be repeated.

The party sources revealed that based on Mohalla sabhas organised by AAP, the party has received a poor feedback for four of the sitting MLAs. These include Maninder Singh Dhir (Jangpura), Raju Dhingan (Trilokpuri) Veena Anand (Patel Nagar), and Dharmendra Koli (Seemapuri) who will a;; be dropped from the list. Dhingan, MLA Trilokpuri was accused of not doing enough to restore normalcy in the east Delhi neighbourhood, where communal clashes left 70 injured. The Citizen had reported of his absence during the violence, with local residents pointing out that he had not been seen at all despite winning the last elections with a vote from all communities in the constituency.

Two MLAs— Harish Khanna (Timarpur) and Rajesh Garg (Rohini) – have said they had themselves decided not to contest due to lack of internal democracy in the party.

The party sources claimed that these MLAs were cautioned earlier also, but they failed to establish contact with their constituents. AAP spokesperson Ashutosh, claimed that this was all part of a normal evaluation.

“Whenever a party goes into elections, there is a process of evaluation. We will also be retaining and dropping some people. Performance will be the main criterion.” Ashutosh said.

Despite a spectacular electoral debut in 2013 with 28 seats in the 70-member Delhi assembly AAP resigned from the Government in just 49 days leaving the Assembly suspended for six months. The BJP cashed in on this with its ‘bhagora’ description for Kejriwal following him into the Lok Sabha elections in Varanasi as well where he had contested against BJP’s Narendra Modi. Kejriwal later termed the decision to resign as hasty and apologised to the people of Delhi for taking such an "immature" decision.

Communal tensions are simmering in many of the far flung colonies in Delhi like Trilokpuri denting the support base for AAP by fracturing the unity of the electorate. However, there is no other opposition to the BJP in Delhi with the Congress party completely decimated. Its former chief minister Sheila Dixit has been issuing statements read as supportive of the BJP by her Congress colleagues who attribute this to the ongoing CBI cases against her. AAP has lost ground considerably with the BJP in top position with its decision to repeat a Maharashtra and Haryana by fielding Prime Minister Narendra Modi as its star campaigner.