The Aam Aadmi Party on Monday got to work to make use of its brute majority in the Punjab Assembly. The AAP nominated five candidates for the Rajya Sabha polls to be held on March 31.
The candidates are former cricketer Harbhajan Singh, Lovely Professional University founder Ashok Mittal, AAP MLA Raghav Chadha, IIT Delhi faculty Sandeep Pathak and industrialist Sanjeev Arora. Given AAP's numbers in the assembly, the five candidates are expected to sail through.
However, their nomination has drawn criticism that AAP had chosen 'outsiders'. Chadha is an MLA in the Delhi Assembly while Pathak is an academic based in Delhi, who was involved in planning the party poll campaign. Ashok Mittal is the founder of Phagwara-based Lovely Professional University (LPU), which was the first private university in the state while Sanjeev Arora, a businessman from Ludhiana, runs Krishna Pran Breast Cancer Charitable Trust.
Former Congress Punjab unit chief Navjot Singh Sidhu alleged on Tuesday the nominations showed the AAP leadership, headed by Arvind Kejriwal, was running Punjab by “remote control”. The Congress and other opposition parties had repeatedly alleged Kejriwal would seek to run the state by proxy.
Sidhu tweeted “New batteries for the Delhi remote control , it’s blinking ….. Harbhajan is an exception , the rest are batteries and betrayal of Punjab!” Harbhajan and Sidhu played together when the former made his debut in the Indian cricket team in 1998. In December, Sidhu had caused a flutter when he tweeted a photograph with Harbhajan. The photograph gave rise to speculation Harbhajan could join the Congress.
Akali Dal leader Manpreet Singh Ayali also fired an 'outsiders' jibe at the AAP. Ayali was the sole Akali Dal candidate to win a seat in Ludhiana district, which was swept by the AAP. Ayali, the MLA for Dakha constituency, tweeted on Monday “Why can't Rajya Sabha Candidates be from Farming background,Woman society or prominent Panthak faces from Punjab state but sadly your leaders opted for 1.Raghav Chadha(Delhi MLA) 2.BJP related Sanjeev Arora 3.campaign manager Sandeep Pathak.”
