BJP to ignore celebrities, will pick a local from Gurdaspur

Tribune News Service

Ravi Dhaliwal

Gurdaspur, February 21

The consensus has emerged among senior BJP leaders that the party will shun a celebrity candidate and instead opt for a local nominee if it is to win the Gurdaspur parliamentary seat.

A hunt is on for a home-bred politician, who is not only well-versed with the political topography of the area, but also has the potential to curtail the damage inflicted by incumbent MP and actor Sunny Deol.

Doors shut on Yuvraj, Kangana?

• This means southpaw cricketer Yuvraj Singh may have to look for another seat if he has to test the political waters
• There was speculation that the 2011 cricket World Cup hero would be fielded from Gurdaspur after he and his mother recently met Union Minister Nitin Gadkari
• The decision to stick to a local candidate also pulls the plug on yet another celebrity-actress Kangana Ranaut

The party has given up its pro-celebrity stance following feedback from its workers. Based on their response, the party now knows that the voters have not forgotten how the current MP pulled the wool over their eyes by remaining absent from the constituency for his full term of five years, barring a couple of visits earlier.

This, in effect, means southpaw cricketer Yuvraj Singh may have to look for another seat if he has to test the political waters. There was speculation that the 2011 cricket World Cup hero would be fielded from Gurdaspur after he and his mother recently met Union Minister Nitin Gadkari.

The decision to stick to a local candidate also pulls the plug on yet another celebrity-actress Kangana Ranaut.

The party is also averse to fielding Ranaut because of her public utterances against Jat Sikhs during the farmers’ agitation in 2020 in New Delhi over the three farm laws. Instead of Gurdaspur, the party may ask her to contest from the Mandi seat of Himachal Pradesh because she hails from Manali which is a part of that seat. Moreover, the fact that Jat Sikhs have a strong presence in five Assembly seats of this parliamentary constituency definitely goes against the actress.

In June, when Home Minister Amit Shah addressed a rally in Gurdaspur, senior ministers like Arjun Ram Meghwal and Meenakshi Lekhi had expressed apprehensions of fielding a known personality.

“These leaders knew that Deol was having a negative impact in the area following his prolonged absence from the very constituency that so eagerly elected him by 77,000 votes.

Sidhu in touch with BJP?

There are rumours that Navjot Sidhu is in touch with some BJP leaders. It is being claimed that he is seeking a ticket for the parliamentary poll. Sidhu joined the BJP in 2004 and contested the parliamentary elections from Amritsar. He was nominated to the Rajya Sabha in 2016. In 2017, he joined the Congress.

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