Ludhiana bypoll: Women councillors, sarpanches make up for absence of male party leaders

Following the announcement of the Ludhiana (West) byelection, leaders of various political parties, including MLAs, councillors and sarpanches become unavailable for local residents.

Even as Aam Aadmi Party leaders have already been camping at various localities falling under Ludhiana (West) Assembly segment for over a fortnight, office-bearers and activists of the Congress, Shiromani Akali Dal and Bhartiya Janata Party are reportedly commuting between their native areas and their respective beats in Ludhiana.

The tendency has resulted in a situation wherein women councillors and sarpanches have to reschedule their daily chores to accommodate people from other wards seeking guidance and verification of their documents.

Acknowledging the tendency, some councillors led by Vikas Krishan Sharma said care had been taken to ensure that residents don’t suffer due to unavailability of their elected representative who had been asked by their leadership to support the election campaign of their respective candidates in Ludhiana (West).

“While we have been supporting the election campaign of our party candidate under the supervision of AAP legislator Jaswant Singh Gajjanmajra, we tried our best to ensure that residents don’t suffer due to our deployment at Ludhiana,” said Sharma maintaining that women councillors, irrespective of their political allegiance, were available at their homes.

Deepak Sharma, president, Block Congress Committee, said that his councillor wife Jaswinder Sharma had staggered her programme of taking the kids for a vacation after learning that most of the male councillors were busy in election campaigns of candidates of their respective parties in Ludhiana.

“As it has become a trend for leaders of almost all political parties to support election campaigns of their respective candidates, we have decided to reschedule our tour plans according to people’s requirements,” said Sharma.

Councillor of ward number 5 Jaswinder Sharma acknowledged that the number of people visiting her place for verification of documents related to admissions and issuance of certain certificates had increased significantly following declaration of the byelection.