The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Wednesday named Rajya Sabha member Sanjeev Arora as its candidate for the Ludhiana West Assembly bypoll, triggering strong speculations that the seat has been vacated for the entry of AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal in Rajya Sabha. Hours after the nomination announcement, the AAP dismissed the speculations, saying the 56-year-old former Delhi chief minister would not make his way to Rajya Sabha.

The announcement was made by AAP national general secretary Sandeep Pathak in a post on X. Arora will have to resign from the Rajya Sabha if he wins the bypoll, the date for which is yet to be announced.

Arora, meanwhile, posted on X: “Humbled and grateful to the leadership @AamAadmiParty for reposing faith in me to contest the Ludhiana West by-elections. As someone deeply connected to my hometown, I look forward to serving my people with dedication and sincerity.”

After the loss of Delhi polls, it was believed that Kejriwal would make his Rajya Sabha entry via Arora’s vacant seat. The speculations around Kejriwal began following Punjab Congress leader Partap Singh Bajwa’s allegations.  “Kejriwal wants to enter power through Punjab, and some Rajya Sabha members will have to sacrifice and make way for him,” he said.

Punjab is currently the best bet for Kejriwal after his party lost power in Delhi after a decade. Since vacating the government bungalow after resigning as chief minister last year, he has been living in Delhi at another Punjab MP Ashok Mittal’s house.

Insiders say Kejriwal had met Arora in New Delhi on Tuesday and asked him to contest Ludhiana West by-elections while assuring him a key role and responsibility in the state government. If Arora contests and wins the by-election, he will have to vacate his Rajya Sabha seat. Insiders say that he could be inducted into the Bhagwant Mann Cabinet as a minister. This potential vacancy in the Upper House has fueled rumours about Kejriwal possibly replacing him. However, a final decision is likely be made only after Arora’s election as an MLA.

The AAP will need to make one of them MPs resign for Kejriwal’s entry. However, the AAP cannot win back the Rajya Sabha seat if a Delhi Rajya Sabha MP resigns, because the party do not have majority here.

In Punjab, the party has 93 MLAs and seven MPs and can easily regain a seat from there.

AAP currently holds 10 Rajya Sabha seats - three from Delhi and seven from Punjab. The tenure of  Delhi’s Rajya Sabha seats are until 2030 while  Punjab’s Rajya Sabha seats are valid until 2028, making it the most viable route to the Upper House. Currently, Sanjay Singh and Narain Dass Gupta are the Rajya Sabha members from Delhi from the AAP.  Swati Maliwal, who has turned critical of Kejriwal and the AAP in the last few months, is also representing the AAP in the Rajya Sabha. While it is the first term for Maliwal, Singh and Gupta have been the party’s RS choice in the last term as well. AAP has seven members in the Rajya Sabha from Punjab - Sanjeev Arora, Sandeep Pathak, Raghav Chadha, former cricketer Harbhajan Singh, Ashok Mittal, environmentalist Balbir Singh Seechewal and industrialist Vikramjit Singh.

The Election Commission is yet to announce the dates of the Ludhiana West bypoll. It is expected to be held in November along with the Bihar Assembly elections.

Soon after the AAP announcement, BJP  IT cell head Amit Malviya also weighed in on Sanjiv Arora’s candidature, asking whether this move was intended at “clearing the path for Arvind Kejriwal, who just lost his own seat in New Delhi, to get nominated to the Rajya Sabha from Punjab”. “Wouldn’t it be better if someone from Punjab represented the state instead of Kejriwal?” Malviya asked in a post on X.

Malviya further asked whether the AAP had promised Arora a ministerial berth once he won the bypoll and vacated his seat. “This kind of transactional politics must be condemned. The people of Ludhiana must defeat Sanjeev Arora so that he cannot offer his seat to Arvind Kejriwal without losing his own,” he added.

AAP spokesperson Priyanka Kakkar dismissed the buzz of Kejriwal’s possible entry to the Parliament. “Arvind Kejriwal is not going to Rajya Sabha,” she said She said that as far as the AAP supremo is concerned, earlier there were reports of him becoming the Punjab CM, now it is of him contesting from Rajya Sabha. “Both of these are absolutely wrong. Arvind Kejriwal is the national convenor of AAP. I agree that his demand is very high, but he is not limited to any one seat,” Kakkar added. BJP national spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill also questioned the AAP’s move to field Arora for the Ludhiana West bypoll. He posed three questions as to why this decision was made. “Kejriwal wants to enter Rajya Sabha? Kejriwal wants Govt accommodation in Delhi? Kejriwal having major power FOMO after losing elections?Shergill asked whether AAP asked Arora to vacate the seat in order to make “3P ‘power, perks & privileges’ greedy Kejriwal happy?”

Arora, who was elected to the Rajya Sabha from Punjab in 2022 for a six-year term ending in 2028, would have to resign from Parliament to contest the state elections. If he steps down, his vacant Rajya Sabha seat could potentially be allocated to Kejriwal. The Ludhiana West Assembly seat had fallen vacant following the mysterious death of AAP MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi on January 10. As per rules, the bypoll to elect new MLA from vacant seat has to be held within six months.