Parties rush to name candidates for civic poll

Political parties have started the process of selecting candidates for the urban civic polls scheduled for December 21.

With just four days given for filing of nominations, all parties, including AAP, Congress, BJP and SAD are in a rush to decide on the candidates so that nominations can be filed till December 12. No nomination was filed today.

Apart from elections to five Municipal Corporations of Amritsar, Jalandhar, Phagwara, Ludhiana and Patiala, elections for 44 municipal councils / nagar panchayats and bypolls for 49 wards of these civic bodies are to be held. These elections will be contested on the party ticket and are thus generating a lot of interest.

The AAP leadership claimed that it was flooded with request from aspirants to contest the civic elections. There are around 500 aspirants seeking tickets for 85 wards of the Jalandhar MC. Today, even a former mayor and deputy mayor of the MC joined AAP, even as screening committees continued with their meetings throughout the day to field suitable candidates. Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and Rajya Sabha MP Sandeep Pathak will also hold a meeting of all screening committees of AAP on Tuesday.

The screening committee for the distribution of tickets for 85 wards of the Amritsar MC also met today under the chairmanship of Cabinet Minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal.

AAP president Aman Arora said the list of their candidates would be released within a day or two and they would seek votes in the name of development brought about by the AAP government.

The screening committees formed by the Congress also continued their meetings throughout the day to finalise the names of candidates. Congress general secretary (Organization) Sandeep Sandhu said the party would release the first list of candidates on Tuesday. He said one name had been finalised for 75 to 80 per cent of the wards, while there were several contenders for the remaining wards. It has been learnt that the names of candidates from such wards would be announced in the second list.

SAD to contest on party symbol

SAD spokesperson Dr Daljit Singh Cheema said they would contest the civic elections on the party symbol. He said working president Balwinder Singh Bhundar had appointed party leaders as observers for the elections

Harish Rai Dhanda has been appointed observer for Jalandhar, Bikram Singh Majitha and Gulzar Singh Ranike for Amritsar, Baldev Singh Khaira for Phagwara, Mantar Singh Brar and SR Kler for Ludhiana and NK Sharma and Gurpreet Singh Raju Khanna for the Patiala MC elections