INDIA VOTES 2024: In Taranjit, BJP fields Jat Sikh who can’t be labelled ‘outsider’ in Amritsar

Tribune News Service

Manmeet Singh Gill

Amritsar, April 1

Even as the BJP has fielded Taranjit Singh Sandhu, a Jat Sikh and former ambassador of India to the US, as its candidate from Amritsar Lok Sabha seat, his fight is not easy given the party’s relationship with the agrarian community.

The party has also shunned the tag of fielding outsiders as its candidates from here as Sandhu has a deep connection with the city, considering his grandfather Teja Singh Samundri’s association here.

Previously in Lok Sabha elections, when the BJP had fielded Arun Jaitley and then Hardeep Singh Puri as candidates, they were labelled as outsiders by opposite parties.

Ever since the party had fielded Navjot Singh Sidhu, also a Jat Sikh, the seat had always been won by Jat Sikh candidates. However after Sidhu left the BJP, the Jat Sikh MPs from here were from the Congress.

However, still it would a hard task for the BJP to win the trust of the agrarian community that was in considerable size here to change the outcome of the election. “Even as Taranjit Singh Sandhu belongs to the community, given the relationship of his party with the Jats it would be very difficult for him to win their trust,” Advocate Kuljeet Singh Malawali, a political analyst, said.

The Jat community is at loggerheads with the BJP since the central government had brought three controversial agriculture laws. Even though the government had later rolled back it decision, the agrarian community still feels cheated as promises made to it were not fulfilled.

“No doubt Sandhu is by far the best candidate the BJP has fielded from here, but he would have to answer his party’s actions. People in the rural belt are still not appeased and hold the BJP responsible for their crises,” Shivcharan Singh, a resident said, adding that the BJP candidate would have to work more in village.

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