New Delhi: After forming its 1st government outside Delhi, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is gearing up for the Rajya Sabha battle, the elections for which will be held on March 31. AAP has announced five candidates for entry in Upper House that will fall vacant on April 9.
AAP’s Punjab in-charge Raghav Chadha, cricketer Harbhajan Singh, IIT-Delhi professor Sandeep Pathak, Lovely Professional University chancellor Ashok Mittal and Industrialist Sanjeev Arora are the five picks of party.
The selection of Ludhiana based businessman Sanjeev Arora has set tongues wagging among political circles as he is the only industrialist in AAP’s list of 5 nominees, rest all are either educationist or cricketer. Arora’s candidature is also being discussed because AAP’s RS choice from Delhi created controversy in the past. Its choice of businessman over neta from Delhi earned the party lot of brickbats, however, it defended its commitment of ushering in clean politics.
According to a leading portal, the RPIL, the firm run by Sanjeev Arora was embroiled in a controversy over auction of Ludhiana Improvement Trust’s prime land at alleged throwaway prices last year. Local BJP leaders had accused the Trust of auctioning prime land to RPIL at throwaway prices.
Industrialist Sanjeev Arora lives with his family in Gurgaon & frequently travels to Ludhiana for business.
As Kejriwal-led party won clear majority in Punjab Assembly (92 out of 117 seats), all of its Rajya Sabha picks from the state are expected to be elected unopposed.
With election of 3 more MPs in Rajya Sabha, the party’s tally in the Upper House will go up from 3 to 8. The party already has 3 RS MPs from Delhi.
All of five candidates are expected to file nomination from the state by today. The last date for withdrawal of nominations is March 24.
The Rajya Sabha elections became imminent as tenure of 5 MPs is coming to an end on April 9. Incumbent lawmakers whose six year tenure is coming to an end are Pratap Singh Bajwa, Shamsher Singh Dullo (Congress); Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa and Naresh Gujral (Shiromani Akali Dal); and Shwait Malik from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
