SAD in crisis for Jalandhar LS seat

Tribune News Service

Deepkamal Kaur

Jalandhar, April 18

Even as there is a month and a half for the General Election day in Punjab, there seems to have been a downfall in the graph of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) for the Jalandhar Parliamentary seat.

While all other parties have announced their candidates, SAD has not been able to take a decision so far. The party this Sunday lost its ex-chief parliamentary secretary and its most vocal dalit leader Pawan Tinu. Along with him, the party’s strategist Gurcharan S Channi, who was the district SAD chief (urban) also quit leaving a dent. Gurcharan’s exit sent out a message that those who had recently rejoined the party were not feeling comfortable and were looking for an exit all over again.

The Akali Dal leadership has also gone into crisis from Adampur Vidhan Sabha seat, which Tinu had represented twice. Jagbir Brar, who had contested from Jalandhar Cantonment in 2022, too is in the AAP now. While the party had already been in a major crisis in the four urban segments of Jalandhar, it is now not comfortably placed even in the rural segments. Sarwan S Phillaur, who has been an ex-minister and MLA from Kartarpur, has returned to the party but he had on Wednesday supported ex-MP Sukhdev S Dhindsa, who has been rebelling against Akali Dal over denial of a ticket.

SAD chief Sukhbir Badal is expected to be in Jalandhar in a day or two to quell the rebel, decide the candidates and resolve various issues. The party could get just about 1.58 lakh votes in 2023 Lok Sabha by-poll in Jalandhar and finished third that too at a time when it was in an alliance with the BSP. It could poll just about half the votes (3.04 lakh) that went in favour of the AAP then.

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