Priyanka Tiwari
Share
The Ludhiana (West) Assembly by-election which is to be conducted before July 11, has had a candidate announced for it. Aam Aam Aadmi have claimed Sanjeev Arora, their Rajya Sabha member from Punjab, as the candidate on Tuesday.
The movement is important considering the claim of the opposition that AAP's national head Arvind Kejriwal requested a Rajya Sabha seat in the event of his loss during the Delhi Assembly elections. In the recently conducted elections for the Delhi Assembly, Kejriwal lost the New Delhi Assembly seat to BJP’s Parvesh Verma and was defeated by more than 4000 votes.
If Arora is proclaimed the winner, he will acquire the responsibilities of a constituency member and subsequently renounce the position of Rajya Sabha MP which makes it easier for Kejriwal to penetrate the Parliament through Rajya Sabha from Punjab, the sole state in which AAP rules using a comfortable majority.
Still, AAP members have refuted any intentions to accommodate Kejriwal. AAP has in total 7 Rajya Sabha MPs from Punjab, Sanjeev Arora being among them. Others are Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Pathak, cricketer Harbhajan Singh, educationist Ashok Mittal, environmentalist religious leader Baba Balbir Singh Seechewal and entrepreneur Vikramjit Singh Sawhney.
As Partap Singh Bajwa has stated previously, Kejriwal is contemplated moving to Punjab and as such underlines a potential contest against Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, as the opposition head in that region.
In the past election of Punjab, the Aam Aadmi Party won 92 of the 117 Assembly seats. That staggering majority would make Kejriwal’s entry into the Rajya Sabha virtually effortless.
The by-elections in Ludhiana West have no set date. This election was brought about because of the death of AAP MLA Gurpreet Gogi Bassi in January. A parliamentary or assembly seat can’t be unattended for more than six months. This means the Assembly bypolls must be held no later than the 11th of July.
