Puri faces tough contest in Amritsar

GS Paul

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, April 22

It will not be an easy ride for Union Minister of State for Urban Housing Hardeep Singh Puri, who will represent the BJP in the Parliamentary elections from Amritsar.

Amritsar has always seen a clash of titans. The BJP had Puri and Rajinder Mohan Singh Chhina as its top choices. A section of the local leaders opined that Chhina could have been a better choice as he was a native of the holy city whereas Puri was an outsider, although Chhina had lost the 2017 byelections to Gurjeet Singh Aujla, who has been renominated as Congress candidate.

Chhina said he had been working in various constituencies for the past few months after getting an “almost” green signal from the party high command. “Still, I honour party’s decision and will support its candidate wholeheartedly,” he said.

Puri had dined and slept at a Dalit’s home at the nearby Mudhal village as part of the saffron party’s nationwide drive in April 2018. A month later, he had announced projects including a 4-km approach road which was completed recently, besides giving free gas connections to 123 families in the village. His promises about installing streetlights, LEDs along the road and setting up a shed in the village grain market are yet to be fulfilled.

Puri, a retired diplomat, was the Centre’s first choice to represent India in the ground-breaking ceremony of Kartarpur Sahib corridor along with Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal in Pakistan in November 2018. Earlier, in February 2018, he was chosen to receive Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at Amritsar.

Puri will face sitting MP Gurjeet Singh Aujla and AAP’s Majha zone incharge Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal.

BJP state head Shwait Malik said, “Keeping in view his experience and calibre, his candidature will be like opening a golden gate for Amritsar’s development. It will be a blessing for the five urban and four semi-urban constituencies of Amritsar as the projects like HRIDAY and Smart City were bring operated from his department only. Besides this, his department also takes care of Nagar Council development projects.”

On the other hand, Aujla has termed Puri as a “parachute” candidate.

Even Arun Jaitley had not managed to win from Amritsar despite a strong Modi wave during the 2014 Lok Sabha elections.