All eager to be part of Delhi-Katra expressway

People having houses or agricultural land near the path of the proposed Delhi-Katra expressway are all set to get richer. Their properties will be acquired by the government at handsome rates. When the land was acquired for Kartarpur corridor, farmers got the market price plus an equal amount as solatium, which according to Oxford dictionary is ‘money given to someone as compensation’. An acre went for as much as Rs 32 lakh. Likewise, the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), too, will pay the requisite solatium once the expressway project kicks off early next year. This is one part of the story. The other part is that Batala residents are peeved because the expressway will not touch their city and instead will branch off towards Gurdaspur city from Jalandhar before making its way to Dinanagar, Pathankot and Katra. Jagjot Singh Sandhu, who is an RTI activist, has taken it on himself to spearhead the fight to include Batala on the eight-lane expressway. Recently, MP Sunny Deol approached Nitin Gadkari, Surface Transport Minister, to get the city on the expressway map. Gadkari assured him that he will look into his request. Apart from this, there has been no word on the issue. Now, Sandhu has filed an RTI with the Transport Ministry seeking details of MP Deol’s meeting. He has cited the fact that apart from being an industrial city, Batala also plays host to several historically significant religious places. He claims, and quite rightly so, that fresh oxygen will be infused in the industrial sector because of increased connectivity of the city with other parts of the country if a linkage is given to the expressway.

Controversy over MP Sunny Deol’s Man Friday

A few months ago, MP Sunny Deol had triggered off a controversy by appointing a screenwriter Gurpreet Singh Palheri as his Man Friday. And to complicate things for himself, he did this by making the appointment on his official letterhead. This gave the impression that people had chosen Deol as their representative in the Parliament but he chose somebody else to represent them. This development did not go down well among both his detractors and supporters within the BJP. On his part, Palheri was never comfortable with the intricacies of big time politics. The man is no longer in the thick of things and his place has now been taken over by young Pankaj Joshi. The MP’s man in New Delhi is veteran Ashok Chopra while affairs of the constituency are now being looked after by Joshi. The new incumbent has opened an office in Pathankot. Joshi is having a busy time looking after planning and execution of projects brought from the Centre by Deol. Gurdaspur parliamentary constituency has nine Assembly segments but the Pathankot seat takes the cake because it has become the fulcrum around which everything revolves. Joshi says his master is a hard task master. “Sometimes, he even wakes me up at odd hours to know the exact position of projects being undertaken by him in the area. I am surely on a learning curve,” he said.

Arjun partap bajwa is Testing new waters

Acting was his first love, but now Arjun Partap Singh Bajwa, has been forced to consign it to the back-burner. His father and Qadian MLA, Fateh Jung Bajwa, has asked him to take over the affairs of his Assembly segment. Arjun is also a member of the Gurdaspur zila parishad and these days is active touring the villages doing his lot for people. During the lockdown period he could be seen among the masses distributing masks and sanitisers. Another responsibility thrust upon him is to supervise the Congress party’s affairs in the neighbouring seat of Sri Hargobindpur. Despite the fact that Fateh’s long time ally, Balwinder Laddi, is the sitting MLA of Sri Hargobindpur, yet it is Arjun, who holds confabulations with people. The crux of the matter is that Fateh and Laddi have fallen apart following which the former has asked his son to take over the affairs of Laddi’s seat. It is a known fact that Fateh is considered to be close to CM Capt Amarinder Singh. His voice is heard in the corridors of the Secretariat in Chandigarh. The grapevine is working overtime and there are rumours that Arjun may be asked to test the political waters in the 2022 Assembly polls. As they say, in politics everything is possible. Incidentally, among all the six seats Gurdaspur district has, Qadian and Dera Baba Nanak, are considered to be the safest ones for the Congress. If that is the case then the actor in Arjun will cease to exist. It will be replaced by the politician. How successful will he be in his new avatar remains in the realms of speculation.