AAP undecided on bypoll candidate

Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 13

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which had 15 to 20 candidates in line for one Assembly seat, is at sea to find a suitable candidate for contesting the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat bypoll. The elections will take place on February 4 along with Assembly elections.

Just five days are left for filing nominations. A senior leader said some candidates were shortlisted but none could fit the bill of winability. Some others were willing but the party could not find them suitable in the criteria of ‘Triple C’ where the candidate has to have a clean record, free of corruption and crime.

Sources reveal that the party was seriously considering the names of Jaswinder Singh Advocate, convener of the Akal Purakh Ki Fauj, and singer Harbhajan Mann. Jaswinder Singh has quite a following in the Sikh population. He was also among the Sikh leaders in the forefront in the organisation of celebrations of Guru Gobind Singh’s 350th birth anniversary in Patna, Bihar.

But none of the names has been finalised so far.

One group had suggested that former Chief Election Commissioner and Congress Rajya Sabha MP MS Gill may be approached. Gill, however, told The Tribune that he was not interested.

The party’s national organisation building head Durgesh Pathak, who is camping in Amritsar supervising the Majha region, told The Tribune that no name was finalised yet.

AAP sources, however, said the party was facing tense moments as time was running fast, “As of today, it seems the party will not be able to find any candidate, unless fast decisions are taken in the next 48 hours,” claimed a senior leader.