AAP not to contest Dhuri byelection
Monday, 16/03/2015
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MOGA: With the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) national leadership facing “internal issues”, the party has decided not to contest the April 11 Dhuri byelection, party MPs Bhagwant Mann from Sangrur and Sadhu Singh from Faridkot said on Sunday.
“The party does not have the organisational structure at the moment to contest the byelection. We first need to lay our foundation across the state,” Mann said at a rally at Badhni Kalan, 20km from here.
The party had earlier announced that it would contest the bypoll. The MPs claimed that the bypoll would be another financial burden on the people of the state and should have been avoided. “The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) forced the bypolls in Moga and Talwandi Sabo by making sitting Congress MLAs quit their party. The practice of forcing bypolls merely to achieve petty targets should be done away with,” the MPs said.
The Dhuri assembly seat fell vacant after Congress MLA Arvind Khanna resigned. During the parliamentary elections, AAP candidate Bhagwant Mann had secured a lead of 32,000 votes from the Dhuri segment. Sources said party workers from the state had sent their views to AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal saying the party should contest the bypoll; however, a decision on the candidate could not be finalised. Addressing the rally, Mann said the people of Punjab would punish the ruling SAD-BJP alliance in the next elections. “We are preparing for the assembly elections and I assure you that the AAP would form the government in Punjab in 2017,” Mann said, adding that it was a party of the common man and not of leaders.
Mann said, “The Badal family has made its career via politics, but the careers of youth, farmers, labourers, small traders, students and poor sections have been affected due to lack of good policies. Politics is not a career, but a mission for me.”
He alleged that the SAD and BJP are dishonest parties. “Leaders of these parties are responsible for looting Punjab and defaming Punjabi culture.”
