Chandigarh : All five Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) nominees for the Rajya Sabha from Punjab --- former cricketer Harbhajan Singh, Delhi MLA Raghav Chadha, IIT-Delhi professor Sandeep Pathak, Lovely Professional University chancellor Ashok Mittal and industrialist Sanjeev Arora --- were elected unopposed on Thursday.
Punjab Vidhan Sabha secretary-cum-returning officer Surinder Pal said that all five have been declared winners unopposed in the absence of any other candidate for the five seats from the state. “A report in this regard has been sent to the Election Commission of India,” he said.
The AAP candidates had filed their nomination papers on March 21 and Thursday was the last day for withdrawal. AAP won 92 of the 117 seats in the state assembly and the victory of its nominees was certain as no other party, including the Congress which has 18 members, fielded its candidate. All five winners will have a term of six years. With their victory, the AAP’s tally in the Upper House will increase from three to eight.
The five seats will vacant on April 9, the date on which the term of office of Partap Singh Bajwa, Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, Shamsher Singh Dullo, Naresh Gujral and Shwait Malik is expiring. Bajwa and Dullo are from the Congress, whereas Malik belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Dhindsa and Gujral were elected from the SAD in 2016 but the former fell out with the Akali leadership and quit the party.
{{/usCountry}}The five seats will vacant on April 9, the date on which the term of office of Partap Singh Bajwa, Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, Shamsher Singh Dullo, Naresh Gujral and Shwait Malik is expiring. Bajwa and Dullo are from the Congress, whereas Malik belongs to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Dhindsa and Gujral were elected from the SAD in 2016 but the former fell out with the Akali leadership and quit the party.
{{/usCountry}}Of these five seats, three have been filled by holding one election and the other two through another election as these seats belonged to two different biennial cycles, according to the returning officer.
Harbhajan, 41, who has his roots in Jalandhar, is one of India’s most successful off-spinners, whereas Pathak, the new Punjab affairs co-incharge, managed the party’s election strategy and campaign in the state from behind the scenes. Chadha, 33, resigned as a member of the Delhi assembly on Thursday after his nomination to the Upper House, is a trusted aide of Kejriwal. Ashok Mittal, 58, is the founder chancellor of Lovely Professional University (LPU). Sanjeev Arora, 58, is into real estate and hosiery business. He runs an export business for the past three decades and diversified into real estate in 2006.