Saragarhi book on Capt’s mind

Rajmeet Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, February 5

The polling is over in Punjab, but not for state Congress chief Capt Amarinder Singh. He is scheduled to visit poll-bound Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh to campaign for the party.

A day after the hard-fought poll battle in the state, the scion of erstwhile Patiala royal estate did not let the poll fatigue get to him. “I will be visiting Uttarakhand before moving to Uttar Pradesh,” Capt Amarinder said today.

He spent the morning with his grandchildren and relatives in Patiala before leaving for Chandigarh around 10.30am.

At his bungalow here, he got down to reading the final draft of his book on the battle of Saragarhi. It is slated for release next month. “I carried the draft with me during campaigning. But due to hectic schedule, I was unable to read it. At the end of the day, I was too tired to go through it,” said the CM face of the Congress.

“Post polling, there’s nothing to do. I am in a different mindset, focusing on the job at hand,” he said, relaxing in the lobby on the first floor, where he has planted strawberries. As plants have bore fruit, he relishes these and offers them to his guests.

In the afternoon, he hosted a lunch for the IPAC team, which he said did a “good job”. “I am politely turning down requests from visitors to go downstairs to pose for selfies because it gets exhausting after a long schedule of campaigning.”

Confident, he glanced through several survey reports on his mobile phone that hint towards the Congress forming the government. The conversation was interrupted by calls from candidates, who seemed to share their feedback on polling trends in their constituencies.

“We are expecting 34 seats in Malwa, 19 in Majha and 14 in Doaba. My boys are confidant of performing well. We may not do well on one or two seats in Hoshiarpur and Jalandhar districts,” he added.