Parties yet to declare names in Ferozepur, eye turncoats

Tribune News Service

Archit Watts

Muktsar, April 5

The Ferozepur Lok Sabha constituency, which is spread over three districts, Ferozepur, Muktsar and Fazilka, is the lone among 13 constituencies where no major political party has declared its candidate yet. As a result, political activity is also yet to pick up pace here.

Sukhbir won it in 2019

• n In 2019, Sukhbir Badal had won by a margin of 1,98,850 votes from Ferozepur against Sher Singh Ghubaya, who had switched over to the Congress. In 2009 and 2014, Ghubaya had won this seat as an Akali candidate.

Wait-and-watch game on

There are talks amid political circles that some biggies may switch sides in a few days, thus the wait-and-watch game is under way. The caste factor also plays an important role here. Political observers

SAD chief Sukhbir Badal is the sitting MP from this constituency. Sukhbir has, however, announced that he would not contest the election. The constituency comprises nine Assembly segments – Ferozepur Urban, Ferozepur Rural, Guru Har Sahai, Jalalabad, Fazilka, Balluana, Abohar, Malout and Muktsar. Except Abohar, all eight MLAs in this constituency belong to AAP.

Some political observers said all parties were finding a suitable candidate and waiting for some defections as well. “There are talks amid political circles that some biggies may switch sides in a few days, thus the game of wait and watch is under way. The caste factor also plays an important role here,” they claimed.

This constituency has a sizeable population of Sikhs, Rai Sikhs, Kambojs and Hindus. The Hindus have 32 per cent of vote share in this constituency, thus some politicians from the community are also trying hard to get ticket.

State BJP chief Sunil Jakhar’s native village Panjkosi in the Abohar segment also falls in this constituency.

So far, AAP has given ticket to nine candidates – Gurmeet Singh Khudian from Bathinda, Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer from Sangrur, Dr Balbir Singh from Patiala, Kuldeep Singh from Amritsar, Laljit Singh Bhullar from Khadoor Sahib, Gurpreet Singh GP from Fatehgarh Sahib, Karamjit Singh Anmol from Faridkot, Malwinder Singh Kang from Anandpur Sahib and Dr Raj Kumar Chabbewal from Hoshiarpur. Sushil Kumar Rinku had also got the AAP ticket from Jalandhar, but he later joined the BJP.

The BJP has so far fielded six candidates – Sushil Kumar Rinku from Jalandhar, Ravneet Singh Bittu from Ludhiana, Taranjit Singh Sandhu from Amritsar, Hans Raj Hans from Faridkot, Preneet Kaur from Patiala and Dinesh Singh Babbu from Gurdaspur. SAD (Amritsar) has also fielded five candidates yet, which included Simranjit Singh Mann from Sangrur.

The candidates are already campaigning in the field.

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