Former city SAD president among two join Congress

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 20 

Former president of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) city unit and ex-councillor Jagjit Singh, alias Gora Kang, returned to the Congress fold along with another senior leader Gurvinder Singh Billu of Dhanas village here today.

Both leaders joined the party at a ‘pendu samaroh’, which was addressed by the Congress Lok Sabha candidate from Chandigarh, Pawan Kumar Bansal, at the Congress Bhawan in Sector 35 here today. The event was organised by the Chandigarh Rural Congress Committee.

The ex-Union Minister today promised that if elected as Member of Parliament he would ensure that Punjabi was given the status of official language in the Union Territory on the lines of Hindi and English.

Addressing the rural gathering, in which panches and sarpanches of all 22 villages falling in the UT were present, Bansal blamed the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation for neglecting villages falling under the civic body. 

Under the BJP rule, the rural folks were not getting new electricity and water connections, he said, adding that construction outside the ‘lal dora’ was unjustifiably being demolished. 

He supported demand for raising the height of residential buildings in villages upto 45 metres.

Meanwhile, Punjab Animal Husbandry Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu, former minister Jagmohan Singh Kang and Fatehgarh Sahib MLA Kuljit Singh Nagra appealed to the gathering to whole-heartedly support Bansal in the interest of city’s development, which had been set back by many years because of the BJP misrule.

Other senior party leaders, including Chandigarh Congress president Pradeep Chhabra, councillor Devinder Singh Babla and party leader Gurpreet Singh Happy, sought the support of the rural communities to ensure development in villages at par with the city areas.