Atwal father-son duo not allowed to reach PM Narendra Modi’s rally in Jalandhar

Deepkamal Kaur

Jalandhar, May 24

Inder Iqbal Atwal, BJP candidate for the Jalandhar 2023 Lok Sabha bypoll, has said that he and his father Charanjit Singh Atwal were not allowed to reach the venue of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally at PAP here today.

Charanjit Atwal, an octogenarian and former Speaker of the Vidhan Sabha and former Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha, too, reportedly kept on pleading before the police deployed at the PAP to let them inside the rally venue, but the pleas remained unheard.

Felt bad for my aged father

I really felt bad for my aged father who kept on pleading to be allowed to move ahead despite holding top posts in Punjab and at the national level. I shall definitely take up the matter with Punjab BJP in-charge Vijay Rupani. Since I also hold the charge of the vice-president of the Ludhiana election committee, there was no reason that my name went missing from the list. —Inder Iqbal Atwal

Junior Atwal said: “We received a call from the party stating that we were in the list of invitees who would be seated on the stage. After reaching the PAP, we kept on telling an SP on duty that we should be allowed to proceed, but he showed us a list in which our names were missing. We kept calling the BJP higher-ups, but there seemed to be a network jam and calls were not getting through. Unable to work on either way, we chose to return back”.

He said: “I really felt bad for my aged father who kept on pleading to be allowed to move ahead despite holding top posts in Punjab and at the national level. I shall definitely take up the matter with Punjab BJP in-charge Vijay Rupani. Since I also hold the charge of the vice-president of the Ludhiana election committee, there was no reason that my name went missing from the list.”

Atwals have been Akali leaders till they joined the BJP last year. Charanjit Atwal has been MP from Phillaur, while Inder Iqbal Atwal is former MLA from the Payal Assembly segment.