AAP Nominates Industrialist Rajinder Gupta For Punjab Rajya Sabha By-Election

Chandigarh: The ruling Aam Aadmi Party has named prominent industrialist Rajinder Gupta as its candidate for the Punjab Rajya Sabha by-election scheduled to be held on October 24.

The Rajya Sabha seat fell vacant after the resignation of Sanjeev Arora who successfully contested the Ludhiana West by-election in June this year and was made a minister in the chief minister Bhagwant Mann Cabinet. Ludhiana West bypoll was necessitated due to the demise of AAP MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi, in January, this year. He died at his home of a gunshot after his licensed weapon accidentally went off.

Gupta is the chairman emeritus of the Trident Group. He has already submitted his resignation as the vice-chairman of the state economic policy and planning board as well as the chairperson of the Sri Kali Devi temple advisory committee. He had also been the vice-chairperson of the planning board during both the previous Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP combine governments.

For record, AAP has 93 of the total 117 members in the state assembly. Hence Gutpa’s win is certain in case of an election.

Presently, all the six of the total seven Rajya Sabha seats of Punjab have AAP leaders. They are – Vikramjit Singh Sahni, Balbir Singh Seechewal, Raghav Chadha, Sandeep Pathak, Harbhajan Singh and Ashok Mittal - while one seat is currently vacant.