DW BUREAU / Chandigarh

The AAP on Tuesday announced two more candidates from Punjab for the Lok Sabha elections, fielding former Congress MLA Raj Kumar Chabbewal from Hoshiarpur and Malvinder Singh Kang from Anandpur Sahib. This is the AAP's second list, announced in a post on X by Sandeep Pathak, the party's national general secretary.

Polling for Punjab's 13 Lok Sabha seats will be held on June 1.

Chabbewal quit the Congress and joined the AAP on March 15 in the presence of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann.

The 54-year-old also resigned as MLA from the Chabbewal constituency in Hoshiarpur district. He had been the deputy leader of opposition in the Punjab Assembly.

Chabbewal had said after joining the party that he was impressed with the AAP government's "pro-people" policies, especially for the poor and the weaker sections.

The prominent Dalit leader, a doctor by profession, had contested the Lok Sabha elections from Hoshiarpur in 2019 on a Congress ticket, losing to the BJP's Som Prakash.

The Congress, Shiromani Akali Dal and the BJP are yet to name their candidates from the seat.

Kang, the chief spokesperson of the AAP's Punjab unit, is one of the party's most prominent faces in the state.

He joined the AAP in July 2021, having quit the BJP in October 2020 over the now-repealed farm laws. He was the state general secretary of the BJP and a prominent Sikh face in the party's core committee.

Kang has also been a two-time president of the Panjab University Students' Council.

The Anandpur Sahib seat is currently represented by the Congress' Manish Tewari. No other major party has announced their candidates from the seat.

The AAP had earlier announced eight candidates from Punjab. However, Sushil Rinku, who was fielded from Jalandhar, quit the party and joined the BJP a few days ago.

In its first list of candidates, the AAP named five Cabinet ministers -- Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal from Amritsar, Laljit Singh Bhullar from Khadoor Sahib, Gurmeet Singh Khudian from Bathinda, Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer from Sangrur and Dr Balbir Singh from Patiala.

It also nominated former Congress MLA Gurpreet Singh GP from Fatehgarh Sahib and Punjabi actor and singer Karamjeet Anmol from Faridkot.

The AAP, which is a constituent of the opposition INDIA bloc, is contesting the parliamentary polls on its own in Punjab./ PTI /
(editor@dailyworld.in)