New Delhi: Senior Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh will be the party’s nominee for one of the three Rajya Sabha seats. He will file his nomination papers on January 4, sources said.
Singh, who is also the party’s national spokesperson, was the frontrunner for some time. Interestingly, he had expressed his desire to contest elections and not enter Parliament through the Rajya Sabha, but the party's leadership made up its mind on the activist from Sultanpur, UP, who first came in touch with Arvind Kejriwal in 2008 during the right to information campaign.
Singh has been with Kejriwal since and had handled crucial responsibilities - he was in charge of Punjab elections and is currently in charge of Uttar Pradesh. Singh holds a diploma in Mining Engineering from Odisha School of Mining Engineering in Keonjhar.
The Rajya Sabha polls will be held on January 16, and the last date for filing nominations is January 5. With 67 MLAs in the 70-member Delhi Assembly, AAP should have no problem winning the three seats. However, it is yet to take a call on its other two candidates.
The other names in the running include poet-turned-politician Kumar Vishwas. He has been campaigning for his selection aggressively but his chances are next to nothing, sources in the party said.
The decision will be taken at the party political affairs committee on January 3 after Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and deputy CM Manish Sisodia return from their holiday in Andaman and Nicobar islands.
The party has been in talks with a handful of people from diverse fields, including law. It is hunting for credible voices that can challenge the BJP and take on the Prime Minister in the upper house on issues of economy and communal harmony.
This is important as Kejriwal, in a re-think of strategy, has held himself back from attacking the Prime Minister directly. It is also looking for a strong legal voice. The party had approached former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan and former Chief Justice of India TS Thakur, but both turned down the offer, citing personal reasons.
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