No victory since 1999, Left to contest 4 Punjab seats

Tribune News Service

Ruchika M Khanna

Chandigarh, April 24

It has been 25 years since the Left has won a parliamentary election in Punjab.

The CPI and CPM have decided to throw their hat in the ring for only four of the 13 constituencies now.

MPs of Left parties

• 1957 — Partap Singh Daulta from Jhajjar in Joint Punjab
• 1962 — Ranjit Singh from Sangrur
• 1971 — Bhan Singh Bhaura from Bathinda
• 1971 — Teja Singh Swatantar from Sangrur
• 1977 — Bhagat Ram from Phillaur
• 1999 — Bhan Singh Bhaura from Bathinda

While the CPI will be contesting three seats of Amritsar, Khadoor Sahib and Faridkot, the CPM will test the political waters in Jalandhar.

“We will go to the people with our manifesto. Unlike other parties, we neither subscribe to politics of religion or commercialised politics, where crores are spent to entice voters. The historic farm movement in 2020-21 proved that people still subscribe to the ideology of socialism and reformism,” Hardev Arshi, CPI leader, told The Tribune.

Interestingly, the Left parties are part of the INDIA bloc, along with the Aam Aadmi Party and Congress. However, say the Left leaders, in the state, there were no consensus on seat sharing with other allies, following which they decided to field their candidates. “There seemed to be some reluctance in seat sharing. We did wait for some time, but then decided to field our candidates in areas where we feel we are still strong,” Jagrup Singh, leader of the CPI.

With AAP often being regarded in Punjab as having “Left of the Centre” ideology, the vote base of the traditional Left parties have shifted towards AAP. In fact, three ministers in the AAP government - Harpal Cheema, Lal Chand Kataruchak and Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal - had associated with these parties. In the 2014 General Election, the Mangat Ram Pasla group of the CPM had extended support to AAP candidates in some constituencies.

The parties enjoyed a massive sway in the state’s polity. In 1957 Lok Sabha elections, the CPI had a 16.8 per cent vote share and it fielded its contestants on 11 seats. The CPM got the maximum vote share of 4.94 per cent in 1977.

CPI-CPM fields Daswinder Kaur from Amritsar

Amritsar: Amritsar: The CPI-CPM declared Daswinder Kaur as their LS candidate from Amritsar. CPI national council member Amarjit Singh Asal said CPI-CPM said besides Kaur, the CPI has fielded its state council member Gurdial Singh from Khadoor Sahib and retired principal Gurcharan Singh Mann from Faridkot and CPM announced trade union leader Purshotam Lal Bilga as its candidate from Jalandhar. Daswinder Kaur earlier contested the LS elections twice. She will be facing two-time sitting Congress MP Gurjeet Singh Aujla, SAD’s candidate and former minister Anil Joshi, BJP’s candidate and former diplomat Taranjit Singh Sandhu and SAD (Amritsar) candidate Iman Singh Mann.

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