Once foes, Vikramjit Chaudhary, Sushil Rinku share stage

Tribune News Service

Deepkamal Kaur

Jalandhar, May 4

Politics is a full circle and leaders must give their statement and take stands exercising utmost caution or else they tend to erode their own credibility. An unsavoury situation has emerged in the Jalandhar political circle in the ongoing Lok Sabha elections in which all leaders are learning this lesson a hard way.

Within a year, there has been so much upheaval that political foes have turned friends. Politically well-connected friends have turned arch-rivals. This make voters completely confused on what was going around to the extent that they are getting a feeling of having been taken for a ride.

In April 2023, Phillaur Congress MLA Vikramjit Chaudhary and MP Sushil Rinku could not see eye to eye. Chaudhary had a feeling that Rinku had ditched him right at the time when his family was completely shattered owing to his father and then MP Chaudhary Santokh Singh’s sudden demise. Chaudhary’s mother Karamjeet Kaur Chaudhary had got the ticket for 2023 Jalandhar Lok Sabha bypoll out of sympathy. The Congress campaign had just started when Rinku left the party and joined the Aam Aadmi Party to be picked as its candidate. Vikramjit had repeatedly suggested that Rinku’s poster terming him a traitor should be put up in the Congress Bhawan.

In the present general election, things have changed to the extent that Rinku is the BJP candidate from Jalandhar and Karamjeet too has joined the saffron party. Both are in the same platform again and Karamjeet will have to campaign for Rinku, whom the family had been considering a traitor till a month ago. Today, both sat next to each other at a media interaction in Jalandhar. The uneasiness showed a bit as Karamjeet did not take Rinku’s name even once in her 40-45 minute interaction. She applauded PM Narendra Modi and the Central leadership, but she did not ask for vote in Rinku’s name.

Now that it is Rinku’s need being the LS candidate, he went back and got today’s pictures posted on his social media pages. He used a sympathetic tone for her.

“The Congress has meted out injustice to Karamjeet Kaur Chaudhary. The party has not valued the contribution of her family. Instead of her, outsider Charanjit S Channi has been fielded from Jalandhar by the Congress. She has been cheated and her due right has been snatched. There are some principles while fighting a battle which Channi seems to have given up. He should not have fallen to such a low level,” the note written in Punjabi implies.

“Was Rinku morally correct a year ago or is he doing the right thing now? How can Rinku, who ditched Chaudhary when their wounds were so fresh, all of a sudden become their well-wisher and start feeling their pain? Has Chaudhary family forgotten the wounds that actually Rinku gave her by defeating her?” These are the questions going around in the minds of all political observers in Jalandhar. Well as they say, everything is fair in love, war and politics! There are no permanent friends and enemies in this dirty game.

‘Congress meted out injustice to Karamjeet’

“The Congress has meted out injustice to Karamjeet Kaur Chaudhary. The party has not valued the contribution of her family. Instead of her, outsider Charanjit S Channi has been fielded from Jalandhar by the Congress. She has been cheated and her due right has been snatched. There are some principles while fighting a battle which Channi seems to have given up. He should not have fallen to such a low level,” the note written in Punjabi implies.

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