Taking a lead over other parties in the state, the Punjab unit of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday announced the names of five candidates for the Lok Sabha elections likely to be held in April-May next year.
The AAP has retained two outgoing MPs, Bhagwant Mann (Sangrur) and Sadhu Singh (Faridkot).
The names of two other AAP MPs, Dharam Vira Gandhi (Patiala) and Harinder Singh Khalsa (Fatehgarh Sahib), who were suspended from the party in 2015, do not figure in the list announced here by AAP core committee chairman Budh Ram.
The names of other candidates are Ravjot Singh (Hoshiarpur), Kuldip Singh Dhaliwal (Amritsar) and Narinder Singh Shergill (Anandpur Sahib).
The AAP won four Lok Sabha seats in Punjab in the 2014 general elections. The party could not win a single Lok Sabha seat anywhere else in the country.
There are 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab.
The AAP, which showed a lot of promise as a third alternative in Punjab, has been in disarray in the past over two years with infighting and a virtual rebellion by its leadership.
A section of the AAP leadership, led by rebel leader and legislator Sukhpal Singh Khaira, who was recently removed as the Leader of Opposition in the Assembly by the AAP leadership, has been demanding autonomy for the AAP Punjab unit for taking political decisions for the state.
In the last 2-3 weeks, AAP leaders were trying to forge unity between the group owing allegiance to the AAP central leadership and those supporting the Khaira camp but no consensus has been reached so far.