Cong’s Aujla, Dimpa, Chabbewal file nomination; Amarinder fails to turn up
Wednesday, 24/04/2019
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AMRITSAR/KHADOOR SAHIB/HOSHIARPUR: Three Congress candidates — Gurjeet Singh Aujla (Amritsar), Jasbir Singh Dimpa (Khadoor Sahib) and Dr Raj Kumar Chabbewal — filed their nomination papers for the Lok Sabha elections on Tuesday.
Punjab chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh, who was scheduled to accompany these candidates, failed to turn up. Party leaders said he could not make it due to ill health.
Aujla, who had defeated BJP nominee Rajinder Mohan Singh Chhina in 2017 Lok Sabha bypoll, took out a road show in Amritsar, before filing his papers. The party rank and file showcased unity on the occasion.
Apart from two cabinet ministers OP Soni and Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria, local MLAs Raj Kumar Verka (Amritsar west), Inderbir Singh Bolaria (Amritsar south), Sunil Dutti (Amritsar north), Harpartap Singh Ajnala (Ajnala) and Tarsem Singh DC (Attari) accompanied Aujla during the road show.
Other senior leaders, including mayor Karamjit Singh Rintu, Jugal Kishore Sharma and Rajkanwal Preet Singh Lucky, also joined the show.
Some of these leaders once remained opponents of Aujla and did not want him to be given party ticket this time. However, their differences were sorted during a meeting taken by Amarinder during his visit to the city on April 12.
Cabinet minister and MLA (Amritsar east) Navjot Singh Sidhu could not make it as he is campaigning in other states. His wife Navjot Kaur Sidhu was present.
Khadoor Sahib candidate Dimpa filed his nomination papers in Tarn Taran. However, two of the party MLAs whose seats fall in the constituency —Ramanjit Singh Sikki from Khadoor Sahib and Rana Gurjit Singh from Kapurthala — were missing on the occasion.
Dimpa said, “Both of them are regularly campaigning for me and have no differences with me.”
‘PEOPLE HAVE ALREADY MADE THEIR MIND TO FAVOUR CONG’
He said his main contest is with Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) candidate Jagir Kaur. “But this time, the people of the constituency have already made their mind to favour the Congress.”
Khadoor Sahib is a citadel of SAD, which has been winning the seat since 1977, except in 1992 when it boycotted the elections.
Punjab Ekta Party (PEP) has fielded Paramjit Kaur Khalra, widow of human rights activist Jaswant Singh who was allegedly abducted and killed by Punjab Police in 1995 after he had accused the police of cremating unidentified bodies of several Sikh youths.
In Hoshiarpur, Dr Raj Kumar Chabbewal was accompanied by AICC state in-charge Asha Kumari, cabinet minister Sunder Sham Arora and former MP Mohinder Singh Kaypee.
Earlier, Asha Kumari visited the residence of disgruntled party leader Santosh Chowdhary to persuade her to join them, but the latter refused to do so. Chowdhary is sulking over denial of ticket. She had won the Hoshiarpur seat in 2009.
Asha Kumari, however, said she had gone to Chowdhary’s house for a ‘courtesy call’.
