Amritsar Lok Sabha seat may witness four-cornered contest
Neeraj Bagga
Amritsar, February 7
The Amritsar Lok Sabha seat may see a four-cornered contest in the absence of an alliance between the SAD-BJP and the Congress-AAP for the first time. The Amritsar Lok Sabha seat comprising nine Assembly segments has around 16 lakh voters.
Once a coalition partner, SAD and the BJP will field separate candidates as they have not been able to stitch alliance till now. The Congress and AAP are the other major parties to field their candidates from here.
After SAD pulled out of the alliance with the BJP over the now-repeal of the farm laws in 2020, it would be the first General Election that these parties would contest separately. Political activity has picked up after SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal and Punjab Congress affairs in-charge Devender Yadav visited here.
Having won the Lok Sabha seat twice, once during a by-election held in 2017 and another during the 2019 General Election, Amritsar MP Gurjeet Singh Aujla is now facing competition from leaders within his own party. It was out in the open when a Congress party workers’ meeting chaired by visiting Punjab Congress affairs in-charge Devender Yadav on January 29 witnessed heated exchanges between supporters of former Deputy Chief Minister OP Soni and Aujla.
Aujla is confident that both his party and the electorate would evaluate the work he has done during his stint as an MP. “I became the voice of the people of Amritsar by taking up their issues in Parliament and attended the sessions more than the national average of MPs,” says Aujla. He accepted that so far, a four-cornered contest was likely for the Amritsar seat and he was ready for this.
The BJP had won the seat for the last time in 2009 when Navjot Singh Sidhu was its candidate. The saffron party is looking for a winnable candidate. Rumours are strong that it may field current Indian ambassador to the US Taranjit Singh Sandhu. During his visit to the Golden Temple in August, Sandhu specifically visited Teja Singh Samundri Hall, which is named after his grandfather.
The SAD is yet to officially announce its party candidate for the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat. Former Cabinet Minister Anil Joshi has emerged as a strong candidate as five out of the nine Assembly seats fall in the urban segment. Joshi said at present, the stage was set for a four-cornered contest, but it would depend upon the choice of candidate and their past performance. Parties would have a limited impact, he said.
AAP has got a survey conducted, but it has yet to announce the name of its candidate. Rumours are strong that it may field a minister or MLA to contest the election. The Amritsar Lok Sabha seat has largely witnessed a two-sided contest since the first Lok Sabha election in 1957. RL Bhatia of Congress and Navjot Singh Sidhu, a joint candidate of the SAD-BJP, made it a one-sided contest with their individual aura.
