Lagatar24 Desk
Mohali, Jan 18: The Aam Aadmi Party on Tuesday announced Bhagwant Mann as its chief ministerial candidate for the upcoming Punjab Assembly polls.
The decision was announced by the party’s National convenor Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday days after the party opened telephone lines for people of Punjab to suggest names for their preferred chief ministerial candidate.
Around 22 lakh responses were received by the party under its campaign to elect its CM face for the assembly polls.
“An overwhelming majority of responses favoured Mann as the party’s chief ministerial candidate, while some also put his name forward as the CM face for Punjab elections. About 3 per cent of respondents named Punjab Congress unit chief Navjot Singh Sidhu as AAP’s chief ministerial candidate,” Arvind Kejriwal said addressing the event.
Last week, Kejriwal claimed he wanted Bhagwant Mann, the party’s state unit president, to be the party’s CM face for the Punjab elections. However, the Sangrur MP stressed that the decision should be left to the people.
The Aam Aadmi Party entered the 2017 Punjab assembly elections without declaring a chief ministerial candidate, but failed to form a government. It gained 20 seats and became the state’s main opposition party. This time, the AAP national convener promised voters from the start that the party will declare its CM candidate before the election.