The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday announced Delhi MLA Raghav Chadha, former Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh, former IIT-Delhi Associate Professor Sandeep Pathak, Lovely Professional University founder and Chancellor Ashok Mittal, and Ludhiana-based businessman Sanjeev Arora as its nominees for polls to Rajya Sabha seats from Punjab.
All five of them filed their nominations later in the day and also met Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann.
Polls to 13 Rajya Sabha seats in six States, including five from Punjab, are scheduled to be held on March 31. All the seven Rajya Sabha seats of Punjab are getting vacant this year; polls to the remaining two seats are scheduled for July.
AAP had swept the Assembly election in Punjab by winning 92 out of 117 seats and all the seven Rajya Sabha seats are expected to go to them.
Currently, three seats each are with the Congress and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and one is with the BJP.
“I am grateful and humbled by the faith and trust reposed in me by my leader, my mentor @ArvindKejriwal ji and my elder brother @BhagwantMann ji. I pray that God blesses me with the strength and ability to meet my party’s expectations with utmost integrity and sincerity,” Mr. Chadha said in a tweet after filing his nomination.
While Mr. Arora also runs the ‘Krishna Pran Breast Cancer Care Charitable Trust’, Mr. Pathak has been working behind the scenes for AAP for many years and played a major role in building the party organisation in Punjab. He was the man behind deciding the entire strategy for AAP’s victory in Punjab, the party said.
Opposition attack
Opposition parties were quick to attack AAP for nominating “outsiders”.
The SAD said AAP has struck the “first blow” against “Punjab and Punjabiat” by nominating outsiders and also “betrayed” the people of Punjab. “Far from a sweeping pro-Punjab and pro-Punjabiat change, AAP seems to have cheated Punjabis by doling out Rajya Sabha tickets to businessmen, something which it has earlier done in Delhi also,” SAD legislative wing leader Manpreet Singh Ayali said.
Congress leader Sukhpal Singh Khaira said instead of sending non-Punjabis and businessmen to Rajya Sabha, the Chief Minister should have “honoured his commitment to nominate Bibi Paramjit Khalra, victim of police brutality and champion of human rights in Punjab”.
Responding to the Opposition attacks on nominating a businessman, AAP leader Satyendar Jain said that all five nominees are “common people”.
