AAP leader and the party’s Lok Sabha candidate from East Delhi, Atishi Marlena has dropped her surname from her Twitter account. The name ‘Marlena’ has also been dropped from official AAP statements and posters.  Even on the link given to her website, it’s throwing up a 404 error. 

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It has been speculated that she was asked to drop her surname ‘Marlena’ because it sounds Christian or foreign. That’s ironic on several levels because the surname Marlena, given to her by her parents Vijay Singh and Tripta Wahi is a portmanteau of Communist icons Karl Marx and Lenin, atheists who’d quite a beef to pick with the Church. Another report indicated that the AAP leadership thought that the name sounded too ‘foreign’.

Marlena had served as Delhi Education Minister Manish Sisodia’s adviser till April and was AAP in-charge of East Delhi.

Noted historian Ram Chandra Guha wrote: on Twitter: “The communalisation of Indian politics is alarming. In 1977 George Fernandes won an election with a thumping majority from “parochial” Bihar. In 2019 a candidate has to change her name in “cosmopolitan“ Delhi.”

AAP's joint secretary Akshay Marathe denied the reports saying: "A progressive politician like @AtishiAAP who DOES NOT use her caste name 'Singh' to ask for votes, is being targeted for using only Atishi without 'Marlena'. Our discourse is around education and healthcare, not on identities of caste and religion."

AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi tweeted: “This is reality of Indian Electoral Politics to get Elected one cannot have a name which is /might sound like a Christian/Muslim name. That is why we have only 4% Muslims in Lok Sabha out of 14% ,all this “TALK”of Secularism fails at time of Voting.”

Others who are in-charges are Raghav Chadha (South Delhi), Pankaj Gupta (Chandni Chowk), Dilip Pandey (Northeast Delhi) and Ghuggan Singh (Northwest Delhi).

Party sources said these five would be declared as AAP's Lok Sabha candidates.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Monday asked people of the national capital to reject both the BJP and Congress in the 2019 general elections and urged them to vote for the AAP for faster development of the city.

The chief minister claimed that if the seven Delhi MPs were from the AAP then they would not have allowed the sealing drive in the city by "stalling Parliament".

After inauguration of Aam Aadmi Party's east Delhi Lok Sabha office, he alleged there was no benefit of giving votes to the BJP and Congress as both parties do not take care of Delhiites.

In the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, the BJP had won all seven seats in the national capital, defeating Congress and AAP candidates.

At the event, he also sought funds for the AAP to contest the upcoming polls.

Kejriwal asked gathering at the event to draw a comparison between the works done by the AAP government and BJP MPs and then decide whom they want to give their votes.

"If all seven MPs were from the Aam Aadmi Party, the pace of work would have been 10 times more. What did you (people) get for voting in favour of BJP candidates?" Kejriwal asked.

Asserting that the AAP will win all seven Lok Sabha seats in Delhi, he said, "I want to ask you who have worked a lot for you -- the BJP or AAP. I want to ask if they (people) remember any work done by seven BJP MPs.

"On other side, the Delhi government has reduced electricity bills, and also provided free of cost medicines, setting up of mohalla clinics, improvement of government schools among others." Kejriwal accused the BJP of creating hurdles in the government's works through the lieutenant governor.

Raising the issue of recent sealing drive, the AAP's national convener alleged that had all seven BJP MPs sat on dharna, sealing would not have been allowed in Delhi.

"Think once if all seven MPs were from the AAP, Parliament would have been stalled, but sealing would not have been allowed...

"The Aam Aadmi Party is the party of common people. AAP thinks about the people of Delhi, but the Congress and BJP do not think about you (people)," Kejriwal said.

He claimed that there is no benefit of voting for the Congress as it is "finished" and it only works for cutting the votes in the elections.