Jalandhar MP Sushil Rinku. Tribune file
Deepkamal Kaur
Jalandhar, March 27
If sitting Jalandhar Lok Sabha MP Sushil Rinku, who joined BJP on Wednesday, gets to contest the forthcoming Lok Sabha election this year (which he in all probability will do), this will be the third election in the third consecutive year for him from the third party.
In 2022, Rinku had unsuccessfully contested on a Congress ticket from Jalandhar West seat. In 2023, he won the Jalandhar Lok Sabha bypoll as the Aam Aadmi Party candidate.
Now in 2024, he will be contesting the Lok Sabha election from the BJP ticket.
Rinku, who was AAP’s lone Lok Sabha MP, had been given ticket again from the party from Jalandhar but he had not started campaign. He claimed that there were more than two months for the elections to be held in Punjab and it would be too early to start programmes and rallies.
Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had met Rinku during his recent stay in Jalandhar but perhaps even that did not help. Ever since, Rinku was reportedly not in touch with any AAP leader.
The most interesting part in the twin joinings of Rinku and Jalandhar West AAP MLA Sheetal Angural is that both have been arch rivals in the AAP and never saw each other eye to eye. Now they have again jumped into the BJP together.
Angural, who is considered close to former Union Minister of State Vijay Sampla, termed his rejoining the BJP as his ‘ghar wapsi’.
Interestingly, Angural was a complainant in ‘Operation Lotus’ and had alleged that he had been offered Rs 25 crore by the saffron party.
Even Rinku had been levelling allegations against the BJP and terming its rule as dictatorship, especially when he had held a protest outside the Parliament wearing chains and donning a yellow turban.
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