Leaders in wait-and-watch mode

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, January 11

Flashback the 2009 and 2014 elections. Most candidates from various parties who had then contested the parliamentary elections from the region have made a shift to other parties or are reportedly lying back in a wait-and-watch mode.

AAP 2014 Lok Sabha candidates Jyoti Mann from Jalandhar, Yamini Gomar from Hoshiarpur and Bhai Baldeep Singh from Khadoor Sahib have alienated themselves from the party. While Mann was expelled, Bhai Baldeep Singh remained under suspension and Yamini has quit and shifted to the Congress.

Mann said she had so far not decided whom to support. Having remained a teacher earlier, she has no plans to join the profession again.

"I am currently into social service and I have not thought on whom to support politically. Dashrath Ravan, head of the Ludhiana-based Adi Dharam Samaj Sangathan, is my guru. Whosoever he asks me to support, I will."

While Bhai Baldeep Singh could not contest the Khadoor Sahib Vidhan Sabha polls, he wanted to, he has been into Anaad Foundation and works related to promoting ancient music.

Gomar has her mind clear, “I will support all Congress candidates from Hoshiarpur. Besides, I will be touring too for campaigns which will be given to me. A month later after the poll will be over, I will return to my computer training centre which I had been running earlier."

Surjit Singh, BSP candidate of the 2009 poll from Jalandhar, who had polled as many as 93,592 votes from Jalandhar is now the president of the Republican Party of India in Punjab, founded by Dr BR Ambedkar’s son Parkash Ambedkar. Having aligned with the Aapna Party of Punjab, he is the candidate from the Jalandhar Cantonment. A retired DFO and an SC, he has been picked from a general seat.

"My house falls in Guru Teg Bahadur Nagar in the constituency,” he said.

He had quit the party a year after he lost to Congress’ MS Kaypee. While his elder son Simarjit Singh Mand is an MTech from Thapar University and has moved to Auckland, his younger son Sandeep Singh Mand is Assistant Commissioner of Police in Patiala.

BSP's Sukhwinder Kotli, who contested the 2014 poll, is not in the fray. Though he had contested from Adampur in 2012, he has reportedly taken a break this time.

SAD’s 2009 candidate from Jalandhar Hans Raj Hans is now with the BJP after a 10-month stint in the Congress. He will be a star campaigner for the saffron party.