NEW DELHI: The Aam Aadmi Party, which will send its representatives to the Rajya Sabha for the first time, is keen to offer its three seats to ‘outsiders’.
According to party sources, the top brass has finalised a list of eminent personalities, including Padma Vibushan and Ramon Magasaysay award winner MS Swaminathan and former Reserve Bank of India (RBI) governor Raghuram Rajan. AAP insiders claim that the party is in touch with Rajan and deliberations are in the final stages.
“Party chief Arvind Kejriwal wants Raghuram Rajan to represent Delhi and AAP in the Upper House. Apart from him, Swaminathan, also known as the ‘Father of the Green Revolution’, is one of the primary choices,” a party insider said. AAP leaders claimed the decision to nominate ‘outsiders’ was taken to prevent difference of opinions among party members.
Raghuram Govind Rajan, born on February 3, 1963, is an Indian economist and a Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance at the Booth School of Business in the University of Chicago. He was appointed as the Governor of the RBI in August 2013 for a three-year term. He had expressed his desire to serve a second term but was replaced with Urjit Patel by the Narendra Modi government in 2016. On the other hand, MS Swaminathan is a renowned Indian geneticist and has been named as one of TIME magazine’s 20 most influential Asians of the 20th century for his contributions to the green revolution.
“It has been finalised that the party will not nominate any current leader. No names have been floated by anyone except a few followers of Kumar Vishwas. The final names will be out by next week,” sources in the party said.
Vishwas, in a TV interview, had said that one of the three seats should be given to him. Earlier this year in June, he had on the verge of quitting the party after some AAP leaders accused him of being a BJP mole.