No Key or Slipper: After SAD, BJP Ally JJP Pulls Out of Delhi Assembly Poll Battle as EC Assigns Its Chosen Symbol to Others

New Delhi: The Jannayak Janta Party (JJP), which helped the BJP to retain power in Haryana, will not contest the upcoming Delhi Assembly elections on February 8.

Party chief Dushyant Chautala in a statement on Tuesday confirmed that his party would not field candidates "since the symbol is a very important issue" and the JJP is unwilling to fight "on a new symbol at such short notice".

The JJP wanted the Election Commission (EC) to assign it either a key or a slipper as the poll symbol.

"We won't field candidates in Delhi polls since the symbol is a very important issue. We had requested the Election Commission to give the key or slippers as the symbol, but these were given to another organisation. In such a situation, JJP has decided not to contest," the party said in a tweet in Hindi.

The JJP's decision to not contest the Delhi polls comes after another BJP ally — the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) – has decided to stay away. The Punjab-based party said it will not contest the elections as it was asked by the BJP to change its stand on the Citizenship Amendment Act, which it has vehemently refused.

Earlier this month, the JJP had announced it will contest the Delhi Assembly polls, but had put the ball in the saffron party's court on the question of an alliance.

The announcement was made after a meeting of the Delhi election committee of the JJP, chaired by Haryana Deputy Chief Minister Chautala.

Chautala, who is also the Delhi in-charge of the party, had announced the JJP will contest the elections and will formally release its poll manifesto.

Meanwhile, the BJP has chosen to contest 67 of the 70 Assembly seats on its own and is looking to its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) allies to fill the others.

Delhi BJP chief Manoj Tiwari on Monday said the party had offered tickets to Ram Vilas Paswan's Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Dal United (JDU).

Voting for Delhi election will take place February 8 and the results will be declared three days later.