Verka eyes second term from Amritsar West

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, January 17

Considered as one of the Congress heavyweights in the region, Dr Rajkumar Verka began his poll campaigning talking about development issues and his vision for Amritsar West, which has been his winning constituency in 2012.

His USP as the prominent Dalit leader has worked for him in 2012 when he defeated BJP’s Rakesh Gill by a margin of 11, 591 votes. Not considered a perennial winner for his party, though , Dr Verka’s political record has been a mixed bag as he contested the elections from Verka in 2002 and 2007, where he was defeated by Dalbir Singh (SAD), while Congress’s another heavyweight and perennial winner OP Soni won from the Amritsar West seat.

Despite his failure to bring any funds for major development projects to his constituency, Dr Verka has taken up a lot of cases of social injustices acting as the Vice-Chairmen of the National Commission of SC/ST, which can also be attributed to his outreach as a Dalit leader.

Remaining socially active in his constituency, he is considered close to Capt Amarinder Singh, who got the maximum lead from the Amritsar West constituency during the 2014 elections. Verka also spoke against demonetisation, which almost paralysed the low middle class order, and he was among the 42 Congress MLAs to resign on the issue of the SYL canal decision by the SC.

Confident of repeating his success again, Verka is campaigning extensively in his constituency, playing development and employment cards well.