AAP candidates file RS nominations

NEW DELHI: Aam Aadmi Party leader Sanjay Singh, businessman Sushil Gupta, and chartered accountant Narain Dass Gupta on Thursday filed their nominations for the three Rajya Sabha seats from Delhi falling vacant later this month.

Singh, a party loyalist, reached the district magistrate office in Daryaganj with a group of supporters, including party leader Ashutosh, atop a truck that played patriotic songs. The other two nominees Narain Dass and Sushil, reached the office separately in their private vehicles accompanied by their family members.

All t he t hree nominees reached the party office at Deen Dayal Upadhyay Marg on Thursday morning before they set out to file nominations.

“I have been assigned a big responsibility by the party. I will try to raise issues of the common man in the Parliament,” said Singh. The other two nominees also said they will be the voice of the party on issues of national importance in the Upper House.

The elections for three Rajya Sabha members from Delhi are scheduled for January 16 as terms of the incumbent members, Dr Karan Singh, Janardan Dwivedi and Parvez Hashmi — all from the Congress — expire on January 27.The ruling AAP which has an overwhelming majority of 66 members in the 70-member Delhi Assembly, is set to win all the three seats. It is for the first time that AAP, which has six Lok Sabha seats from Punjab, will send members to the Upper House.

The nominations on Wednesday had triggered infighting within the party and a backlash from the estranged members and the opposition with foundermember Kumar Vishwas saying he was “punished for speaking the truth”.

Apart from party loyalist Sanjay Singh, 46, Narain Dass Gupta, 72, is a practising chartered accountant, and a former president of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI), while Sushil Gupta, 56 is a businessman who runs Delhi’s Ganga Group of Institutions and hospitals. Previously, he had contested assembly elections in 2013 on a Congress ticket from Moti Nagar, which he lost.

I have not received any notice. I am not afraid of any court case. The only qualification for his nomination is his wealth.

KAPIL MISHRA, sacked AAP minister