Will AAP pit Shazia Ilmi against Sonia Gandhi from Rae Bareli?

After announcing Kumar Vishwas's candidature against Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, there is a buzz that the party might pit Shazia Ilmi against Congress President Sonia Gandhi in the upcoming general elections.

However, the party did not confirm this development. "We are yet to finalise our candidates," party spokesperson Dilip Pandey said.

Ilmi, a party leader and member of the National Executive Committee, had unsuccessfully contested in assembly elections last year from R K Puram constituency and lost by a narrow margin.

It is learnt that she has also expressed her interest to contest either from South Delhi or from Farukkhabad against Union Minister Salman Khurshid. Of the two, the party has already declared candidature of Lucknow scribe Mukul Tripathi against Khurshid.

Sources said that the AAP wants to field a known name who can take on the Congress President in party stronghold in Rae Bareli.

"In Delhi, we don't require a name as we already have supporters here. However, when we are taking on a strong candidate like Sonia Gandhi, we do require a known name," a party source said.

The party is also looking for strong candidates against BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and there is also a buzz that party's National Convener Arvind Kejriwal might contest against him if he contests from anywhere outside Gujarat.

"Let him (Modi) declare from where is he contesting and then we will comment on it," party leader Sanjay Singh said.

In the first list of 20 candidates released by the party on Sunday, it has decided to contest against political heavy-weights from parties across political spectrum.

The party has pitted poet-turned-politician Kumar Vishwas against Gandhi. Interestingly, in case of Amethi, although the party had declared Vishwas's name on Sunday, but its work begun after the Delhi assembly results when Arvind Kejriwal trounced three-times Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit.