Chhattar Pal Singh in AAP’s second list, actor Rajkumar Rao’s kin joins party

Following the failure of seat-sharing talks with the Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) today released its second list of nine candidates for the October 5 poll in the state. So far, the party has declared candidates of 29 seats.

From Barwala, the party has named Prof Chhattar Pal Singh, who has come from the BJP. His claim to fame is that he had once defeated former Deputy PM Devi Lal in the 1991 Assembly poll from Ghirai by a margin of 2,154 votes. Chhattar had contested the elections on a Congress ticket.

Another turncoat that the AAP has is Jawahar Lal, who has been preferred from Bawal. He had jumped from the Congress, and had also contested on a BJP ticket earlier.

The party has fielded Rita Bamaniya and Krishan Bajaj from Sadhaura and Thanesar, respectively. Meanwhile, the rebels from other parties continue to join the AAP. BJP leader Satish Yadav, his councillor wife, and BJP election management committee member and actor Rajkumar Rao’s brother-in-law, Sunil Rao, along with their associates, left the BJP and joined the AAP today.

Yadav was earlier the chairman of Rewari Zila Parishad, and had contested the Assembly poll twice in the past. Rao said, “It is my good fortune that I am joining the AAP today. I was BJP’s district vice-president of Rewari in 2014, a national executive member of Kisan Morcha, and have also served as the state convenor. However, the fight is about the ideology; my fight is to save the state as well as Ahirwal. This time, not a single BJP candidate is winning in Ahirwal.”

AAP Raja Sabha MP Sanjay Singh said the party had announced that it would fight the state elections on all 90 seats with full strength. In the same sequence, 20 seats were announced on Monday, nine seats today and the rest of the seats would also be announced soon, he added.