Would have been surprised had it been the other way around: Manish Tiwari on absence from Punjab Congress star list

Tribune News Service

Aditi Tandon

New Delhi, February 5

A day after he was excluded from the list of 30 star campaigners for Punjab elections, former union minister and sitting MP from Anandpur Sahib Manish Tewari said he would have been pleasantly surprised had it been the other way round.

Tewari got support from former president Pranab Mukherjee’s son Abhijit Mukherjee on Twitter who termed his exclusion a sad state of affairs.

“I would have been surprised if it would have been the other way around. The reasons have been a Public Affair now for quite a while,” Tewari said to Abhijit who earlier came out in his support on Twitter.

“Sad state of affairs in @INCPunjabas they exclude a prominent senior congress leader, MP from Punjab & former minister @ManishTewari Ji from the list of star campaigners in poll bound Punjab! Such narrow minded steps will never help Congress to win elections,” Abhijit tweeted.

Tewari has been known to speak his mind on a range of issues in the party.

Tewari said reasons for his exclusion were “no state secret.”

The star campaigner list issued by Congress yesterday had Congress president Sonia Gandhi and former prime minister Manmohan Singh in the lead along with Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Vadra. It also had AICC state-in charge Harish Chaudhary, Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu, CM Charanjit Singh Channi apart from veteran MP Ambika Soni and former Lok Sabha speaker Meira Kumar.

Punjab MPs Partap Singh Bajwa and Ravneet Singh Bittu and Rajya Sabha MP from Haryana Deepender Hooda were included but Manish Tewari was conspicuous by his absence.

Punjab minister Amarinder Raja Warring, Jalalabad MLA Raminder Awla (dropped this time), and AICC Minority cell chief Imran Pratapgarhi were also in the list.

Pratapgarhi, who lost the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from Moradabad polling just about 5 per cent of the votes, is a poet and a social media celebrity with over 1.66 million YouTube subscribers and over 21 lakh Facebook followers.

Rajasthan chief minister Ashok Gehlot and his Chhattisgarh counterpart Bhupesh Bahgel, former Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar, AICC general secretary Rajasthan (who headed the Punjab candidates screening panel) Ajay Maken, former Haryana CM Bhupinder Singh Hooda and deputy leader of the party in Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma were also in the list.

The list further included Haryana Congress chief Kumari Selja, AICC general secretary and communications chief Randeep Surjewala, AICC in charge of Himachal Pradesh Rajeev Shukla, former Rajasthan deputy CM Sachin Pilot, former MP Ranjeet Ranjan, Mahila Congress chief Netta D Souza and Indian Youth Congress chief BV Srinivas.

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