All the five nominees of the Aam Admi Party (AAP), including former cricketer Harbhajan Singh were on Thursday elected unopposed to Rajya Sabha.
With AAP registering a landslide victory in the recently-concluded Punjab elections and the party winning 92 out of 117 seats in the state Assembly, the election of AAP candidates into the Upper House of Parliament was a certainty.
Five out of the seven Rajya Sabha seats in Punjab will become vacant on April 9.
AAP nominated former cricketer Harbhajan Singh, Delhi MLA Raghav Chadha who is also AAP co-in-charge of Punjab, IIT Delhi Professor Sandeep Pathak, Chancellor of Lovely Professional University Ashok Mittal and founder of Krishna Pran Breast Cancer Care Charitable Trust Sanjeev Arora to these five vacant seats from Punjab.
Returning Officer-cum-Secretary, Punjab Vidhan Sabha Surinder Pal said that as no candidate had withdrawn his nomination till March 24, the last day for doing so, Sandeep Kumar Pathak and Raghav Chadha (first cycle), Harbhajan Singh, Ashok Mittal and Sanjeev Arora (second cycle) were declared unopposed as winners.
Congress leaders Partap Singh Bajwa and SS Dullo, BJP's Shwait Malik, SAD's Naresh Gujral and SS Dhindsa from SAD-Sanyukt are the five Rajya Sabha MPs who are retiring from the Rajya Sabha.
The term of SAD's Balwinder Singh Bhunder and Congress leader Ambika Soni, who are also Rajya Sabha MPs from Punjab, will end on July 4. Elections to these two seats would be held later this year.
( With inputs from ANI )
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