Former Indian cricketer Harbhajan Singh, AAP MLA Raghav Chadha and IIT Delhi faculty Sandeep Pathak are among the five candidates nominated by the party from Punjab to Rajya Sabha. Educationist Ashok Kumar Mittal and Sanjeev Arora, a businessman are the other two party contenders to the Upper House of parliament, party sources said.
Elections to fill 13 Rajya Sabha seats across six states will be held on March 31. While members from Assam, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Nagaland and Tripura are retiring on April 2, five members from Punjab are retiring on April 9.
Meanwhile, 10 AAP MLAs, including a woman, were inducted in the Bhagwant Mann-led Cabinet in Punjab in Chandigarh on Saturday, March 19. Governor Banwarilal Purohit administered the oath of office and secrecy to the 10 ministers at a ceremony at the Guru Nanak Dev auditorium in Punjab Raj Bhawan in Chandigarh. All of them took the oath in Punjabi.
Barring Harpal Singh Cheema and Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer, eight others are first-time MLAs. Cheema, a legislator from Dirba, was the first to take oath followed by Dr Baljit Kaur, the lone woman in the cabinet and MLA from Malout.
Next to take the oath was Harbhajan Singh from Jandiala, followed by Dr Vijay Singla from Mansa, Lal Chand from Bhoa, Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer from Barnala, Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal from Ajnala, Laljit Singh Bhullar from Patti, Bram Shanker Jimpa from Hoshiarpur and Harjot Singh Bains from Anandpur Sahib.
There are 18 berths in the cabinet, including the chief minister, but Bhagwant Mann has gone for a lean cabinet.
Haryana Governor Bandaru Dattatreya, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, Protem Speaker Dr Inderbir Singh Nijjar, AAP MLAs and family members of those who were inducted as ministers were among those present at the event.
Punjab Governor Purohit had on Wednesday administered the oath of office and secrecy to Bhagwant Mann in a swearing-in ceremony at Khatkar Kalan, the ancestral village of freedom fighter Bhagat Singh.
The Aam Aadmi Party bagged 92 seats in the 117-member Punjab Assembly, decimating the Congress, the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bahujan Samaj Party combine, and the BJP-Punjab Lok Congress-SAD (Sanyukt) alliance.
In the cabinet, the party gave representation to five MLAs from Malwa, four from Majha and one from the Doaba region.
It has accommodated four MLAs who represent reserve constituencies -- Dirba, Jandiala, Malout and Bhoa. Besides, four are Jat Sikhs and two are Hindus.
However, the AAP MLAs who defeated stalwarts, including Congress' Charanjit Singh Channi, Navjot Singh Sidhu, SAD's Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Singh Badal and Punjab Lok Congress chief Amarinder Singh did not find a place in the cabinet.
Congratulating all the newly inducted ministers, Mann tweeted, "Today the new cabinet of Punjab took the oath and at the same time pledged to fulfil the expectations of the people. Congratulations to all the new ministers. We have to work together with full sincerity for the three crore people of Punjab."
Mann had announced the names of MLAs who will be inducted into the cabinet on Friday.