Chandigarh, May 9
Eight Chief Ministers, presidents of seven political parties and several other leaders will be in Ludhiana tomorrow in a bid to woo voters in support of the SAD-BJP candidates for the remaining nine Lok Sabha seats from Punjab. Never before such a galaxy of political bigwigs has made its appearance at a single rally in this part of the country.
The Congress will have the final say when it brings in Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to Amritsar and Khadur Sahib on May 11, hours before the campaigning for the 15th Lok Sabha elections comes to an end.
Narendra Modi, BS Yeddyurappa, Shivraj Singh Chauhan, Dr Raman Singh, Prem Kumar Dhumal and BC Khanduri - all Chief Ministers belonging to the BJP, will be joined by Nitish Kumar and Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal at the Ludhiana rally, which will probably be the last major show of strength attempt by the BJP-led NDA before the May 13 elections in the state.
Besides these Chief Ministers, leaders like Sharad Yadav (JDU), Om Parkash Chautala (INLD), Ajit Singh (RLD), Chandra Mohan Patowary (AGP) and Manohar Joshi (Shiv Sena) will also use their oratory to press for a “change” at the Centre.
Though the first phase of the Lok Sabha polls in Punjab witnessed a record 72 per cent polling, both the Congress-led UPA and the BJP-led NDA would attempt to garner as many of 13 of Punjab seats in what looks like another last minute scramble that might lead to a new coalition government at the Centre.
The SAD-BJP leaders and workers have been on their toes to make the Ludhiana rally a historic success. Besides, they also want to negate the impression that country’s first Sikh Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has become the biggest vote puller.
Though Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, her son and general secretary Rahul Gandhi and Manmohan, have campaigned extensively in Punjab even before the
first phase, as they not want to leave anything to chance. It is after a long time that the Congress is contesting on all 13 Lok Sabha seats. In the last two elections, it had the Communists - the CPI and the CPM - as their poll partners.
On the other hand, the BJP-led NDA leadership chose the second phase of elections for campaigning in Punjab. Till now, hardly any senior leader of the BJP or any of its major alliance partners have visited and campaigned in Punjab. They probably left it to father-son duo Parkash Singh Badal and Sukhbir Singh Badal for the first phase. They are now coming in to make up for their earlier absence.
Arun Jaitely, Sushma Swaraj, Jaswant Singh, Venkaiah Naidu, Gopinath Munde, Sushil Modi and Balbir Punj will all be there to supplement what their top leaders - Prime Ministerial candidate Lal Krishan Advani and BJP chief Rajnath Singh - have to say to Punjabi voters.
Choosing a central place in Punjab may be one reason and wooing thick population of migrant families, especially those from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in the NDA fold, could be the other in favour of this venue.
