Over 12 aspirants in race for Congress ticket from city

Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, March 19

After refusal to contest from the prestigious Amritsar Lok Sabha seat by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, over 12 local aspirants, who have applied for the Congress ticket, have intensified lobbying.

Though neither Local Bodies Minister Navjot Singh Sidhu nor his wife Navjot Kaur Sidhu applied for a ticket, their names are doing the round. It is well known that Sidhu had vowed not to contest from anywhere else but from the holy city. However, Navjot Kaur applying for the ticket for the Chandigarh seat has made their intention known regarding their keenness to contest the Parliamentary elections.

A group of influential MLAs of the ruling dispensation is also keen to field former cricketer-turned-commentator-turned politician to put him out of the state politics.

Sitting Congress Parliamentarian Gurjeet Singh Aujla has applied for re-allocation of the ticket. However, it is reliably learnt that his name is not being supported by majority of the 10 MLAs elected from the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat, which comprises 11 Assembly constituencies. They stated that only two MLAs sought grant out of the MPLAD funds during the nearly past two-year tenure of the Capt Amarinder Singh government.

Aujla’s detractors in the party are raking up the issue of doling out of the grant from his MPLAD funds to buy golf carts for a Chandigarh-based club.

Sources in the BJP stated that the party would announce its candidate for the local seat next month. Though some local leaders and former state ministers are lobbying for the ticket, chances of fielding a celebrity is not ruled out.

Similarly, sources said, the Congress is also not in a hurry to announce its candidate. It normally announces its candidate at the last moment. For instance, the name of Capt Amarinder Singh for the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat was announced in the 2014 Lok Sabha election on the last day.

Meanwhile, former prime minister Manmohan Singh’s younger brother Surjit Singh Kohli also applied for securing the ticket.

Several others have applied, including former MLAs Harjinder Singh Thekedar, Sawinder Singh Kathunangal, Mayor Karamjit Singh Rintu, councillor Vikas Soni (nephew of Education Minister OP Soni), Ajnala MLA Harpratap Singh’s son Kanwarpal Singh Ajnala, Youth Congress leader Dilraj Singh Sarkaria, BS Randhawa and Surabhi Verma, both Congress workers.