Chandigarh: With the ruling Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP’s) nominee and sitting Rajya Sabha member, Sanjeev Arora on Monday winning the high-stakes Ludhiana West assembly bypoll, the political focus now shifts to the Rajya Sabha seat, he will vacate.
Pertinently, the Opposition leaders in Punjab had been claiming that the by-election was ``engineered’’ to create a vacancy in Rajya Sabha and pave a way for Delhi former chief minister and party national convener Arvind Kejriwal’s entry into Rajya Sabha, a presumption, the AAP had vehemently denied.
On Monday afternoon too, after the Ludhiana West bypoll results, Kejriwal on being asked about the same by the newspersons, pointedly said though a decision in this context would be taken by the party’s Parliamentary Affairs Committee (PAC), it is clear that he would not be going as Rajya Sabha member. Addressing newspersons, he said (in lighter vein) ``You people have sent me to Rajya Sabha several times, though I denied the same, now again let me make it clear to you that I am not going to Rajya Sabha’’, he said.
However, Arora’s resignation from Rajya Sabha will create a vacancy for any of the AAP top leaders.
Talks are also agog that Arora would be inducted as a minister in the chief minister Bhagwant Mann’s Cabinet in an expansion soon and that it will mean that he will resign as party Rajya Sabha member thus paving a way for any of the top leaders to replace him.
It was also in this wake that party senior leaders including Punjab in-charge Manish Sisodia, Satyender Jain, Kejriwal’s wife Sunita and chief minister Bhagwant Mann’s wife Gurpreet Kaur Mann campaigned for Arora, aggressively and held multiple road shows. Sisodia being the state affairs incharge had, however, been active in the state promoting the party's education policies to upgrade schools ever since he got the post.
