Senior Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Sanjay Singh, businessman Sushil Gupta and Chartered Accountant Narayan Das Gupta filed their nomination papers for the three Rajya Sabha seats on Thursday.
Sanjay Singh was accorded a rousing reception at the party headquarters before he went to file the nomination riding atop an open vehicle with senior leader Ashutosh by his side.
Singh reached the District Magistrate office at Daryaganj to file the papers atop a truck packed with supporters. AAP leader Ashutosh accompanied him. ND Gupta and Sushil Gupta later filed their nomination papers.
An alumnus of Delhi University’s Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC), Narayan Das Gupta has been on the Board of International Federation of Accountants — an amalgam of 164 regulatory accounting bodies in 116 countries. Sushil Gupta was formerly with the Congress and had contested from Moti Nagar Assembly seat but had lost.
The presence of Ashutosh, who was among the Rajya Sabha hopefuls, is being seen as a message to the workers and volunteers that there was no bad blood between them and that the party remains united.
However, the two Guptas, who briefly dropped in at the AAP office as well, went to file the nominations separately in their own vehicles, accompanied by their family members.
The last date to file nominations for the three Rajya Sabha seats is January 5 and the elections would be held on January 16 as the three Rajya Sabha seats currently held by Janardan Dwividi, Dr Karan Singh and Parvez Hashmi will fall vacant on January 27 of this year.
It will be for the first time the AAP, which officially has 66 members in the 70-member Delhi Assembly, including some dissidents, will send members to the upper house. The Congress has no presence in the Delhi Assembly.