Jalandhar LS seat: Barring SAD, all parties ready with candidates

Deepkamal Kaur

Jalandhar, April 15

Barring the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), almost all other parties have projected their candidates from the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat for the June 1 general elections.

The Congress announced former Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi as its candidate yesterday. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) got joined former Akali CPS Pawan Tinu yesterday. His announcement as the candidate is expected tomorrow. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had got joined sitting AAP MP Sushil Rinku and had announced him its candidate around three weeks ago. The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) too has placed its bet once again on Balwinder Kumar. Parshotam Lal from the CPI (M) is also in the fray.

With all parties having fielded their candidates 45 days prior to the elections, the Akali leadership too seems to have got jittery. The loss of one of the most prominent Dalit leaders of the party – Pawan Tinu – to AAP has also come as a huge setback for it. SAD chief Sukhbir Badal will be in Jalandhar tomorrow to hold meetings with its workers and give them a boost. Akalis are currently placed very weak in the four urban Assembly segments of Jalandhar.

Sukhbir will hold discussions on finalising the candidates for Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur reserved seats tomorrow. So far, former Phillaur MLA Baldev Khera is the frontrunner as sitting Banga MLA Dr Sukhwinder Sukhi and ex-minister Sarwan S Phillaur are seemingly less interested.

SAD district chief (rural) Gurpartap Wadala today held a meeting with party workers in Adampur, Assembly seat that Tinu represented twice.

Having entered in the poll battle, all candidates have started training barbs on one another. While Channi has already started telling electorates not to trust party hoppers, he has been targeting Rinku, who quit the Congress and then AAP to join BJP. He will now be using the same narrative against Tinu, who shifted from the BSP to the Akali Dal and is now likely to be the AAP candidate.

Be my Krishna, Channi to Jalandharites

Other candidates are set to target Charanjit Singh Channi giving him an “outsider” tag. Channi has already started hitting back his adversaries with his reply, “My ancestors were from Jalandhar. I have just come back to my roots,” he has said. Channi has also evolved a new narrative to greet Jalandharites stating: “I have come to you as Sudama. Support me as your Krishna”.