Punjab Diary: Hunting ground for opponents

Chandigarh: The state Congress has become a hunting ground for other parties. Three of its prominent leaders — Sushil Kumar Rinku, Gurpreet Singh GP and Dr Raj Kumar Chabbewal — have left the party to join the AAP. While Rinku, who won the Lok Sabha bypoll from Jalandhar, has been fielded from the same constituency, AAP has declared GP as its Fatehgarh Sahib candidate. Speculation is rife that Chabbewal will be fielded from Hoshiarpur. The Congress is now busy burning the midnight oil to stop the exodus of its leaders ahead of the Lok Sabha polls.

Difficult to sustain political tempo

Chandigarh: Political parties and candidates have been going through anxious moments ever since the General Election on the state’s 13 parliamentary seats was announced for June 1. With almost two-and-a-half months to go to the polls, leaders said it would be difficult to sustain the political tempo through the whole period, and they’d be left exhausted in any case.

Between devil and deep sea

Batala: AAP MLA Amansher Singh Sherry Kalsi is a man grappling with life’s dichotomies. He is in a Catch-22 situation ever since his party’s top-brass hinted at his likely candidature from the Gurdaspur parliamentary constituency. His dilemma is that if he contests and wins, he will have to resign as an MLA. He does not want to be in this situation because according to senior leaders, he is in line for a ministerial berth in the state. And if he loses, he will lose his reputation and some of his hard-earned money. The man is indeed caught between the devil and the deep blue sea!

Jail clash has residents nervous

Gurdaspur: Early this week, fear gripped scores of residents of the PUDA colony here after news of gunfire inside the nearby prison complex spread like wildfire. The next thing they knew was that the prisoners were taking on the cops in a no-holds barred battle. But there were no gunshots — it was just the sound of tear-gas shells being fired. The state of confusion and chaos lasted a few hours, and the nervous residents plan to submit a memorandum to the DC, asking that the jail be moved out of the city.

Ill-planned projects

Gurdaspur: Unlike in other cities where public welfare projects are located in the city limits, it is the other way around here. The Civil Hospital, located in the heart of the city in most places, is located 6 km away, at Batala Road. Likewise, the District Administrative Complex, which houses several government offices, is built in a congested area, as is the judicial complex. The Central Jail, which should be on the city’s outskirts, is located within the city limits. If the bus stand can be shifted out of the town, what stops the administration from bringing the hospital into the city and shifting the jail out?

Taking dig at ‘Punjab Bachao’ yatra

Jalandhar: CM Bhagwant Mann, who inaugurated the museum at Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh Memorial (Khatkar Kalan) and the PAU college building in Balachaur, took a dig at Sukhbir Singh Badal over his “Punjab Bachao Yatra”. “Tuhade toh hi te Punjab bachana hai, do saal pehla bachaya vi si asi! (We have to save Punjab from you, as we did two years ago),” said Mann.

Contributed by Rajmeet Singh, Ravi Dhaliwal, Aakanksha Bhardwaj