Sanjay Singh, Narain Dass Gupta, Sushil Gupta elected unopposed to Upper House

The three candidates nominated by the Aam Aadmi Party — Sanjay Singh, Narain Dass Gupta and Sushil Gupta — were on Monday elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha, marking the party’s entry into the Upper House.

With the tenure of the existing MPs ending at the end of the month, the three Rajya Sabha seats of Delhi would be filled by Mr. Singh, a founding member of the AAP, Mr. Gupta, a chartered accountant who has been the party’s CA for the past two years, and Mr. Sushil Gupta, a businessman who quit the Congress in November 2017 to join the AAP.

Cong objection

All three candidates were handed over the certificate of election by the returning officer, central Delhi District Magistrate Nidhi Srivastava on Monday afternoon. While the nominations of Mr. Singh and Mr. Sushil Gupta were accepted on January 6, Mr. N.D. Gupta’s nomination had been put on hold till Monday morning after objections were raised.

Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken had filed an objection, saying Mr. N.D. Gupta held an office of profit that disqualified him from being an MP. Mr. N.D. Gupta had been a trustee of the government-owned National Pension System Trust, though he resigned from the post on December 29, 2017.

In her order accepting the nomination on Monday, the returning officer wrote that the post of trustee was not an office of profit, being exempt under the Parliament (Prevention of Disqualification) Act, 1959. Referring to Mr. N.D. Gupta’s resignation, the RO wrote that it showed “the intent of the candidate to hold no contentious office at the time of his forthcoming nomination”.

Speaking after the election, Mr. N.D. Gupta said that he had been confident that the complaint would be quashed because of the provision for exemption of trusts.

“There has been no violation, as I have been saying. We should not give such frivolous hurdles any importance. I have received my certificate of election and we are ready to voice the issues of the people in Parliament,” he said.