Lok Sabha election: AAP fields justice Zora Singh from Jalandhar, names 3 more candidates

The Aam Aadmi Party on Sunday declared three more candidates for the Lok Sabha elections in Punjab on Sunday.

AAP state chief Bhagwant Mann announced that justice Zora Singh (retd) will contest from Jalandhar, Baljinder Singh Chaunda from Fatehgarh Sahib (both reserved seats) and Peter Maseeh Cheeda from Gurdaspur seat.

With this, the party has declared candidates for eight of the 13 parliamentary seat in the state.

The announcement was made after a meeting of the party’s core committee in Sangrur, which was attended by Mann, leader of opposition in state assembly Harpal Singh Cheema and Principal Budh Ram, chairman of the committee, among others.

The party has earlier declared the names of another five candidates — Bhagwant Mann (Sangrur), Sadhu Singh (Faridkot), Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal (Amritsar), Dr Ravjot Singh (Hoshiarpur) and Narinder Singh Shergill (Anandpur Sahib).

“The names of candidates for the remaining five seats will also be declared soon,” said Mann.

Justice Zora Singh (retd), who had headed a commission, under the SAD-BJP regime, to probe the sacrilege incidents in Punjab, had joined the AAP in December 2018 as he “appreciated its ideology”. He had served the judicial service for around 35 years.

A businessman-turned-AAP volunteer Baljinder Singh Chaunda, 54, has been working with the party since 2014. Belonging to a Dalit family, Chaunda formally joined the AAP in 2015 and is in-charge of party’s SC wing.

Peter Masih Cheeda, 37, an old associate of Aapna Punjab Party chief Sucha Singh Chhotepur, runs a school in Gurdaspur district. He joined the AAP ahead of the Gurdaspur bypoll and is now its Fatehgarh Churian halqa in-charge.