Is Arvind Kejriwal coming to Rajya Sabha from Punjab?

New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders are mulling to send former Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal to the Rajya Sabha from Punjab.

It is said that Rajya Sabha member Sanjeev Arora is likely to vacate his seat for Kejriwal.
In turn, he will contest the upcoming by-elections from Ludhiana West. The by-poll for this seat has been necessitated following the death of AAP legislator Gurpreet Singh Gogi, due to a gunshot wound in January this year.

If Arora wins the by-poll, he has been assured of a ministerial berth.

According to The Tribune newspaper, six other AAP Rajya Sabha members from Punjab too have offered their seats to Kejriwal but the former Delhi chief minister had not accepted any offer yet.

But will it be a good move? If this happens, it will give Kejriwal's opponents a fresh handle on attacking him after his electoral defeat in Delhi. As it is, the critics have been targetting Kejriwal for trying to remote control Punjab.

Soon after the Delhi elections, there was a buzz that Kejriwal would replace Bhagwant Singh Mann as the Punjab chief minister but the AAP supremo refuted such reports, calling them baseless and misleading.

Kejriwal doesn't need a Rajya Sabha berth for political survival. His bigger challenge is to keep his flock together and not let the AAP disintegrate.

He has apparently received suggestions that the AAP should now focus on Gujarat if he wants to get back at Prime Minister Narendra Modi and home minister Amit Shah. By taking them on their home turf, Kejriwal will try to send a message that it is only the AAP which can defeat the BJP in its stronghold. 

He has been urged to camp in Gujarat till the assembly elections and try to strengthen the state unit to enable it to dislodge the BJP. 

But will it happen, only time will tell.