Another twist, Tewari calls it quits
Saturday, 22/03/2014
http://epaper.dailypostindia.com/Details.aspx?id=97798&boxid=58750&uid=&dat=2014-03-22
Will he, won’t he? The suspense over the candidature of Manish Tewari from Ludhiana Lok Sabha constituency took another turn on Friday, with reports emanating that he will not contest, after all.
Tewari, who is the Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, is learnt to have withdrawn from the contest, citing his ill-health.
After a long wait and speculation of not contesting from Ludhiana, the name of Manish Tewari was finalised two days ago by the party high command to recontest from Ludhiana and the district Congress leaders were ready to accord him a grand welcome on Saturday.
However, on Friday morning, Tewari was admitted to a hospital in Delhi and his name was taken off the list of candidates scheduled to be announced.
As soon as reports of Manish Tewari not contesting from Ludhiana came out, the District Congress Committee also announced to postpone the programme to welcome Manish
Tewari, which was scheduled for Saturday morning at 10 am.
The local leaders, who were disappointed over the indecisiveness on the issue of the Congress candidate from Ludhiana, switched off their cell phones.
Some of the leaders who were in Delhi to escort Tewari to Ludhiana also returned in the afternoon. Earlier, Tewari was eyeing the Chandigarh Lok Sabha seat, which was allocated instead to senior Congress leader Pawan Kumar Bansal and Tewari again shifted focus to Ludhiana.
Speculations came to the fore when Tewari was admitted to hospital but after two days, he was discharged from hospital and
gave his consent to contest elections to the party high command.
On Friday, however, Tewari finally quit his candidature from Ludhiana seat and the party high command started discussion for a new candidate.
Tewari contested his first election from the Ludhiana constituency in 2004 but lost to Shiromani Akali Dal candidate Sharanjit Singh Dhillon. In 2009, he contested from Ludhiana again and won the election with a huge margin.
Tewari was elevated as the Union Minister in 2012. Close to the Gandhi family, Tewari was the national spokesperson of the party for many years.
