From photovoltaic cells to politics, it is a quantum leap for Dr Sandeep Pathak after the physics professor was nominated by the Aam Aadmi Party today for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections.
The little-known Pathak is a surprise pick by the AAP for the Rajya Sabha seats falling vacant in Punjab, where the party recently registered a thumping victory, winning 92 seats in the 117-member Vidhan Sabha.
The Rajya Sabha nomination is being described in the party as an extremely well-deserved reward for the 42-year-old Pathak, who had worked behind the scenes in Punjab for the AAP, helping it build an organisational structure down to the booth level.
Pathak, an assistant professor at the department of energy science and engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi, is learnt to be a member of the inner circle of Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. He was entrusted with the task of designing the party's outreach in the assembly elections in Punjab. He is credited with the AAP successfully reaching out to the people through its door-to-door campaign.
Pathak, who filed his nomination papers for the Rajya Sabha polls today, is understood to have worked as part of the team that strategised for the AAP in the assembly elections in Delhi in 2020 under the guidance of election strategist Prashant Kishor. Since then, he is said to have fast become a trusted go-to-person for Kejriwal, who is himself an IIT graduate. Before his name hit the headlines as a Rajya Sabha nominee, little indeed was known about Pathak, especially since he undertook number crunching and strategised completely behind the scenes. He worked quietly and kept his distance from both mainstream and social media.
Originally from Chhattisgarh, Pathak hails from a village in Lormi region of Mungeli district and belongs to a family of farmers. He did his initial schooling from Lormi, moving to Bilaspur for his higher education. He completed his college studies from Hyderabad. He completed his masters and PhD from Cambridge, UK, in 2011. He joined the faculty of IIT Delhi in 2016. His area of work at the IIT is stated to be fabrication of perovskite-based photovoltaic devices, photo-physical properties and he has a number of research papers to his credit.
The Rajya Sabha nomination is a huge political jump for Pathak, and it comes at a time when the AAP has decided to entrust him with greater responsibilities. He has been named as in-charge of the state unit in Gujarat, which goes to polls later this year and where the AAP has made its presence felt in the municipal elections. He has also been named as co-in-charge of Punjab, a state where he earned his spurs.
Besides Pathak, his predecessor as co-in-charge of Punjab and his compatriot in doing the ground work for the party in the assembly elections, Raghav Chadha, has been nominated for the Rajya Sabha elections. The 33-year-old Chadha, an MLA in Delhi and a close confidant of Kejriwal, would be the youngest-ever MP in the upper house.
The AAP has also nominated former cricketer Harbhajan Singh, who is understood to have been interested in taking the political plunge for some time now, for the Rajya Sabha polls. He is the only Sikh face nominated by the party from Punjab for the upper house elections.
Two prominent businessmen from the state also figure amongst the AAP's picks for the upper house. Ashok K. Mittal, founder chancellor of the Lovely Professional University, and Sanjeev Arora, who runs an export house in the industrial hub Ludhiana, are the party's other choices for the Rajya Sabha polls.