To set the ball rolling for 2017 Punjab polls, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is all geared up to announce its first list of 23 candidates.
The resurgent AAP will soon make its first list public once it receive the final nod from the party’s Political Affairs Committee (PAC), headed by national convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. Party’s Faridkot MP Prof Sadhu Singh Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann are PAC’s members.
AAP volunteers have recommended nearly 500 names of the probable from 23 Assembly segments after gauging their track record in public life and their months of dedicated work for the party as well as for the people of Punjab, said party’s official spokesperson.
The spokesperson said the names recommended by AAP’s volunteers were thereafter sent to the 16-member Punjab Election Campaign Committee for deliberations in the meeting held on Saturday evening in Chandigarh.
The campaign committee has already forwarded the list of recommendations to the AAP’s screening committee of Punjab.
The screening committee, which met early morning on Sunday, included AAP’s national spokesperson and state affairs’ in-charge Sanjay Singh, Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann, Faridkot MP Prof Sadhu Singh, Punjab convener Sucha Singh Chhotepur and national organization building secretary Durgesh Pathak, to deliberate on the names forwarded by the campaign committee.
During the meeting, the screening committee kept utmost care of the fact that the probables must have a clean track record.
The screening committee, after weighing various pros and cons of the names recommended by the campaign committee, has short-listed nearly 130 names, on an average five to
seven from each constituency, before forwarding the same with its remarks to the PAC.
Spokesperson said that the PAC would soon take a final decision on the names of the candidates of 23 assembly segments. “Thereafter, the party is likely to make the announcement of candidates immediately,” added the spokesperson.