The Aam Aadmi Party on Monday nominated its spokesperson Raghav Chadha and former cricketer Harbhajan Singh for the Rajya Sabha elections, which will be held later this month.
It has also nominated Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi professor Sandeep Pathak, the founder of Lovely Professional University Ashok Kumar Mittal and a textile businessman from Ludhiana, Sanjeev Arora, for the Upper House.
Five Rajya Sabha seats from Punjab will fall vacant on April 9, according to The Indian Express. Meanwhile, the terms of two Rajya Sabha members from Assam, one from Himachal Pradesh, three from Kerala and one each from Nagaland and Tripura will end on April 2.
Elections for all the 13 seats will be held on March 31.
Commenting on the nomination, Chadha said that he will raise issues that concern the people of Punjab and will protect their interests in Parliament, ANI reported.
“I want to thank Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann for nominating me at such a young age,” said the 33-year-old, who currently represents the Rajendra Nagar Assembly constituency in Delhi.
Chadha also is the AAP’s co in-charge for Punjab, where the party recently won a landslide victory in the Assembly election.
Pathak works in the department of energy science and engineering at IIT-Delhi, and holds a PhD from the Cambridge University in the United Kingdom, The Tribune reported. He was reportedly the principal strategist for the AAP in Punjab and had designed the party’s electoral campaign.
The AAP had won an overwhelming majority in Punjab, bagging 92 of the 117 Assembly constituencies.
The party currently has three members in the Rajya Sabha – Sanjay Singh, Sushil Kumar Gupta and ND Gupta.
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