No alliance, AAP to contest all 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab alone

Ananya Panda
Tribune News Service
New Delhi, March 29

Advertisement

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Friday announced that it will contest all the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab alone and will resume its rallies, including by its star campaigners such as Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, in the last week of April.

AAP Punjab unit chief Bhagwant Mann and Leader of the Opposition in the state assembly Harpal Singh Cheema met Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia at the former’s residence to discuss the future strategy of campaigning ahead of the parliamentary polls slated for May 19.

The AAP will contest alone on all the 13 parliamentary seats in the state and nominees for remaining five seats will be declared within a week, said Cheema.

In the coming days, the party has decided to counter the BJP-SAD combine in the state mainly on issues of growing unemployment and communal incidents.

It would remind the Capt Amarinder Singh government about the promises the Congress made in 2017 before assembly elections of providing farm loan waivers, reigning in drug, liquor and mining mafia and setting up functional placement cells in colleges.

After the meeting, Cheema said the party’s campaign will focus on countering the BJP-SAD alliance over the 2014 election promise of providing two crore jobs to youth and the saffron party’s “politics of divide”.

“We discussed how we would take forward our campaign in Punjab. What PM Modi promised in 2014 and what he has done during the last five years is for all to see. Instead of new jobs, the NDA government snatched away one crore jobs. Same is with Punjab Government which came to power with false promises.

“He (Capt Amarinder) in 2017 said they will wipe out drug mafia in four weeks, but we saw how since the enforcement of the model code of conduct Rs 84.30 crore worth drugs were seized,” said Cheema.

The Dirba MLA also attacked the Punjab CM over granting of loan waivers to the tune of Rs 90,000 crore to affected farmers in Punjab claiming the government has till now disbursed less than one per cent waivers.

Besides, Cheema said “lack” of a proper policy on transport since 1992 has led to inadequate generation of revenue and the state reeling under Rs 2.15 lakh crore loans from various government agencies is going to be another major issue the AAP will highlight ahead of elections.

“We have submitted our campaign schedule of star campaigners starting from April last week and concluding before the stipulated time of polling to be held on May 19. Among the star campaigners are Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, party’s Delhi convener Gopal Rai, besides other top leaders,” said Cheema.