Know Your Delhi Candidate: Kapil Mishra

Name: Kapil Mishra

Age: 39

Profession: Social Work

Total Assets: Rs 59.99 lakh

Education: Post Graduate

Constituency: Model Town

Cases: Two

Says:  "I have joined the BJP and my sole mission now is to throw Arvind Kejriwal's corrupt government out of Delhi." 

Profile: Kapil Mishra is a former Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader-turned BJP candidate for the Delhi election. When he was with the AAP, Mr Mishra was elected from Delhi's Karawalnagar seat in the 2014 Delhi assembly polls. The politician, who was close to Mr Kejriwal and in the inner circle of AAP, had a bitter parting with both after he publicly accused Mr Kejriwal of corruption. He was removed as a minister in his cabinet in May 2017. Subsequently, he grew close to many Delhi BJP leaders and often shared the stage with them at public events. He was disqualified as an AAP MLA in August 2019 under the anti-defection law after he campaigned for the BJP during the Lok Sabha elections in May. He joined the BJP in August 2019. For the 2020 Delhi polls, the BJP named him as the candidate from Model Town in north Delhi, pitting him against his former colleague and two-time AAP legislator Akhilesh Pati Tripathi. Kapil Mishra has a history of making communal and incendiary comments. The Election Commission had imposed a 48-hour campaigning ban on Mr Mishra in January for his tweet that referred to "mini-Pakistans" in the national capital.