Congress yet to decide nominees

The electioneering in Panipat is going on at a slow pace so far even after the nominations began on Friday. The Congress is yet to decide its candidate for the mayoral post as well as for the councillors’ post for all 26 wards in the city.

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The ruling party, BJP, took a lead by announcing the party candidates over one week ago and the candidates began campaigning in their wards. However, residents have raised the tensions of the BJP senior leaders, as they began opposing the party candidate and three former BJP councillors announced that they would contest the elections. However, no one filed their nomination on the first day.

As per the sources in the Congress, the party is still looking for a suitable candidate for the mayoral post but no candidate has been finalised so far. The Congress has approached Vijay Jain, former BJP councilor, who unsuccessfully contested the Assembly polls in October from the Panipat Rural seat, to make him the mayoral face of the party but he refused the Congress’ offer, sources said.

Notably, Vijay Jain had joined the Congress in the presence of former CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda just before the Assembly polls but the party didn’t give him the ticket from the Panipat Rural Assembly seat. After that he resigned from the Congress and contested the Assembly polls unsuccessfully.

After Jain’s refusal, the Congress again began searching for a suitable mayoral candidate, but so far, it has not got any big face, sources said.

Varinder Kumar Shah, a senior Congress leader said state president Udai Bhan had called a meeting at Delhi on Saturday. Panel of candidates for the mayoral post and councillors’ post would be handed over to the in-charge former MLA Bhim Sen Mehta tomorrow.

The party would announce the candidates after discussion and on the basis of social engineering, Shah added. The party would contest the election with full strength, he added.

BJP’s mayoral candidate Komal Saini opened her election office in the office of MLA Panipat City Pramod Vij on Friday. Former Minister Banwari Lal, BJP’s district president Dushyant Bhatt, MLA Pramod Vij and other senior leaders were present on the occasion.

Komal Saini, the mayoral candidate said the people in the city had decided to form the triple engine government. Saini further said, “The BJP is a big family that’s why my election office activities will be done from the office of Panipat City MLA Pramod Vij and in Panipat Rural Assembly, my election office will be in the office of MLA Mahipal Dhanda. I will file the nomination on March 25 and all senior party leaders will reach during my nomination. I also invite the city residents for my nomination,” Komal said.