Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Lok Sabha MP Bhagwant Mann will be the party’s chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming Punjab Assembly elections, NDTV quoted top sources as saying.
According to the report, the party has made up its mind that the polls will be fought in the Sangrur MP's name. The report further said that the announcement has been delayed because AAP National Convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has tested positive for COVID-19.
On Monday, the AAP announced five more candidates for the Punjab assembly polls.
According to the party's seventh list of candidates, Lalli Majithia has been given a ticket from the Majitha assembly seat.
Majithia had quit the Congress party and joined the AAP on January 1.
At present, the Majitha seat is represented by Akali leader Bikram Singh Majithia.
Ajay Gupta will contest from Amritsar Central seat, Kashmir Singh Sohal from Tarn Taran, Surinder Singh Sodhi from Jalandhar Cantt and Baljit Kaur from Malout, the AAP said.
The total number of candidates announced by Punjab's main opposition party has now reached 101.
Meanwhile,the AAP is likely to emerge as the single largest party in Punjab in the 2022 Assembly polls, the ABP-CVoter Survey said recently.
The Kejriwal-led party is likely to bag 50-56 seats in the 117-member Punjab Assembly, followed by the ruling Congress (39-45 seats) and the Shiromani Akali Dal (17-23 seats), the survey said. Meanwhile, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is likely to win 0-3 seats.
In terms of of vote share, AAP's numbers are likely to go up from 23.7 per cent in 2017 to 38.4 per cent in the next year's Assembly polls. Meanwhile, the vote shares of Congress (from 38.5 per cent to 34.1 per cent) and the Shiromani Akali Dal (from 25.2 per cent to 20.4 per cent) will decrease, the survey said.
