Ending weeks of speculations, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday nominated Sanjay Singh, Sushil Gupta and Narayan Das Gupta as its Rajya Sabha nominees. While Singh has been associated with the party since its inception, Sushil is a Delhi-based businessman and Narayan is a chartered accountant.
The decision was taken at Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal's residence in a meeting attended by around 56 party MLAs. The party's highest decision making body, the Political Affairs Committee (PAC), met soon after and formally approved the decision.
"Sushil has made big contributions in the education and health sectors in Delhi and Haryana. He provides free education to 15,000 children.
"Narayan is the former president of the ICAI (Institute of Chartered Accountant of India)," Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia told reporters.
Sisodia said Kejriwal wanted to nominate people who have contributed in the field of media, economics, law and academics and thus "18 such big names were considered".
"Sanjay has not only been working for the party since the very beginning but has also had a contribution in the fight against corruption," he said.
An alumnus of Delhi University's Shri Ram College of Commerce, Narayan has been on the Board of International Federation of Accountants — an amalgam of 164 regulatory accounting bodies in 116 countries.
"He has contributed immensely in the field of education and health. He provides free education to 15,000 students in the charitable schools in Delhi and Haryana and is also working on the model of charitable university," said Sisodia.
"Many big names were considered by the party but they stepped back saying that if they get nominated to Rajya Sabha on AAP's ticket, the Central Government would unleash all its machinery to harass them. Although they want to work for party's ideology but they don't want to land in this mess," said Sisodia. "They said the Central Government would leave no stone unturned in order to ruin them," Sisodia added.
Three Rajya Sabha seats from Delhi will fall vacant by the end of this month when the tenure of Congress members Janardhan Dwivedi, Parvez Hashmi and Karan Singh end. It would be for the first time that the AAP, which officially has 66 members in the 70-member Delhi Assembly including some dissidents, will elect members to the upper house. The Congress has no presence in the House.
Elections to three Rajya Sabha seats from Delhi would be held on January 16.
The AAP, which enjoys a brute majority in the 70-member Delhi Assembly, is set to win all three seats. The last date to file nominations for the three Rajya Sabha seats is January 5.