Aditi Tandon
New Delhi, March 21
IIT Delhi assistant professor Sandeep Pathak, Aam Aadmi Party’s Punjab co-in-charge Raghav Chadha and ex-spinner Harbhajan Singh are all set to file nominations for three of the five Rajya Sabha seats falling vacant from Punjab and set for elections on March 31.
Meanwhile, founder of Lovely Professional University Ashok Mittal is also expected to get AAP RS nomination from Punjab
Top official AAP sources confirmed the development as reported by The Tribune on Sunday.
Pathak, IIT Delhi faculty in the department of energy science and engineering and has a PhD from Cambridge University.
Pathak received his PhD in 2011 working in the group of the famous professor David Cardwell. His research is focused on the fabrication of Perovskite based photovoltaic devices.
Pathak has also been keen on developing novel material for low cost high performing photovoltaic devices.
The academician has been engaged with AAP’s electoral strategy for some time now and was widely hailed as the force behind Arvind Kejriwal’s last Delhi poll win.
Pathak is also the principal strategist and campaign designer for AAP in Punjab where the party won a landslide recently drowning most of the opposition.
Raghav Chadha, the sitting Rajinder Nagar MLA from Delhi and co in charge of Punjab, will also file his nomination for RS seat from Punjab today.
Former spinner Harbhajan Singh would the third pick.
The remaining two nominations will be announced soon, said AAP sources.
Pathak, Chadha and Harbhajan are already in Chandigarh to file their RS nominations.
Today is the last day for nomination filing for the five RS seat election in Punjab to be held on March 31.
The five vacancies in Punjab are arising due to the term of the following Rajya Sabha MPs ending on April 9. These MPs are Partap Bajwa and SS Dullo (Congress); Shwait Malik (BJP), Naresh Gujral (SAD) and SS Dhindsa. Punjab has seven RS seats. The term of the other two MPs — Balwinder Singh Bhunder (SAD), Ambika Soni (Congress) will end on July 4 this year and elections to these two seats would be held later this year.
The last date for filing of nomination for five RS seats from Punjab is tomorrow; scrutiny will happen on March 22 and the last date for withdrawal of nominations is March 24.
AAP is set to win all five seats falling vacant.
