Senior leader Manish Tewari to shift base, may contest from Ludhiana East
Tuesday, 13/12/2016
http://epaper.dailypostindia.com/Details.aspx?id=169702&boxid=59864&uid=&dat=2016-12-13
Chandigarh : Reports of senior Congress leader and former Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari shifting to Punjab politics for contesting Punjab assembly elections, were supported with Punjab Congress Committee (PCC) chief clarifying that the decision was with the party high command.
Capt Amarinder Singh during a press conference in New Delhi, has claimed that a decision in this context was with Congress president Sonia Gandhi, and the announcement would be made at a suitable time.
Sources disclosed that Manish Tewari, though has not applied for a party ticket, is willing to contest Punjab Vidhan Sabha seat from Ludhiana (East) assembly constituency. His name was discussed in the Congress Election Committee (CEC) meetings presided over by Congress president Sonia Gandhi on December 4 and 8. The meeting, however, ended without finalising the final list of candidates for Punjab Polls.
Former Member Parliament from Ludhiana, Tewari had lost Lok Sabha Election, 2004, but defeated SAD’s candidate Gurcharan Singh Ghalib by a margin of over 100,000 votes in 2009.
Tewari, reportedly, gave a dramatic miss to the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, giving health reasons.
Tewari was admitted to hospital for heart ailment and days later he expressed his unwillingness to contest Parliamentary elections because of bad health reasons.
Following this, the Congress replaced him with Ravneet Singh Bittu, a grandson of former Punjab Chief Minister Beant Singh. Bittu is a two-time MP from Punjab and is considered a member of the youth brigade of Rahul Gandhi.
Now Bittu, a member of former PCC chief Partap Singh Bajwa’s camp, it is said, is objecting to Tewari’s return to Punjab politics, while Capt Amarinder Singh is willing to filed Tewari from Ludhiana, to influence Hindu voters in the ensuing Punjab poll.
