Cong likely to field incumbent MLAs from 11 seats in district

Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, January 5

Barring a couple of seats, the Congress is likely to field most of its incumbent MLAs from the 11 Assembly seats in the district.

The grand old party controls 10 out of the 11 seats. This single seat out of its fold is the Majitha Assembly seat, being held by senior Akali leader Bikram Singh Majithia.

Wresting the seat from Majithia would be a gigantic task at hand, as its old guard Sukhjinder Raj Singh Lalli Majithia had switched over to the Aam Aadmi Party, probably splitting the party votebank in the rural segment.

Congress rural president Bhagwant Pal Singh Sachar had openly staked claim for the seat. But the final decision still rests with the party.

A surprise could unfold in the North Assembly segment, where Sunil Dutti is the sitting MLA, who had defeated BJP’s Anil Joshi with a difference of 14,236 votes in the previous election. Mayor Karamjit Singh Rintu, who had unsuccessfully contested the 2012 election and polled 45,394 votes in his favour, could be a forceful contender. While Virat Devgan, son of a Congress councillor Usha Devgan, has already thrown his hat for a party ticket from the seat, signalling that senior party leaders were mulling a change.

PPCC president Navjot Singh Sidhu (East), Deputy CM OP Soni (Central), Raj Kumar Verka (West), Inderbir Singh Bolaria (South), Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria (Rajasansi) and Harpratap Singh Ajnala (Ajnala) are considered heavyweights keeping in view their past performance.

Sidhu had replaced his wife Dr Navjot Kaur from the East constituency in the last election. He had secured 60.68 per cent of votes, which almost doubled from what his wife had scored in the 2012 election (36.30 per cent). The number of votes polled had increased from 45,762 in the 2012 election to 52,271 in the last election for Raj Kumar Verka.

Bolaria would be contesting for the fourth term. He had thrice won the South seat, once even a bypoll in 2008. Harpratap Ajnala would contest for a third term, as he had won the seat in 2005 and 2017 Assembly elections.

Incumbent MLAs Sukhwinder Singh Danny Bandala (Jandiala), Santokh Singh Bhalaipur (Baba Bakala) and Tarsem Singh DC (Attari) are likely to be fielded from their respective Assembly segments.