Greenhorn doc slugs it out against veteran in Akali strong hold

Aparna Banerji

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, January 19

When he first joined the Anna Andolan as a student attending coaching in Delhi during the India Against Corruption days, Dr Amarjit Thind says he had never imagined Arvind Kejriwal might float a party, or that a party floated by him might contest elections in Punjab.

Now that it has, Dr Thind says he is immensely thankful that he is one of the candidate picks.

Contesting as an AAP candidate from the staunch Akali constituency, the 34-year-old greenhorn is set to take on Akali bigwig Ajit Singh Kohar in a constituency where the Akali veteran has seen two consecutive wins.

“While I have worked hard for the AAP, the trust placed by it in me is amazing. When a candidate was being looked for, taking on Ajit Sigh Kohar was a huge deal and I can’t be thankful enough I have been chosen. With the party placing its trust in me, the first thing I vowed was to work as hard to reach out to people,” Dr Thind says.

With this being his maiden political outing, Dr Thind also banks on youths and social media for a bustling campaign.

While he owns a hospital at Shahkot, he says he is working day and night to fulfill that vow. He starts at 6 am from home, attends meetings all through the day across villages often ending his campaign as late as 10 to 11 pm in the winter nights. With him away, his gynaecologist wife manages the hospital. His mother Kuldip Kaur has been campaigning for him, and his wife Dr Ramandeep Kaur also joins him – early morning or late evening - when she is not at work.

His two sons are Karanpratap Singh (7) and Aarvin Singh (1).

While he says education, drug eradication and sand mafia remain pressing issues in his area, his dream is to provide a college for the Shahkot constituency since it has none. 

“In the past 10 years, the Akali government couldn’t even provide a college to Shahkot. There isn’t even a government college in the area. There are only private nursing institutes. Only today I met a woman at Mehda village who lost her 23-year-old to drugs. The bread winner is gone and the household only has a mother-daughter-in-law duo tending to kids. Things are dismal and people need change,” Thind adds. 

Know your candidate

Constituency: Shahkot 

Party: AAP 

Education: MBBS (Diploma in emergency and trauma medicine) 

Villages: 236

Focus issues: Education, unemployment, drugs, sand mafia.