Pathankot, January 14
Gurdaspur parliamentary constituency is turning out to be a relatively safe haven for the Congress as the party faces dissidence in only two out of the total of nine seats that fall in this Lok Sabha seat.
Former Minister Raman Bhalla, who has been allotted the party ticket from Pathankot, is facing rebellion from former MLA Ashok Sharma. Sharma, who was being backed by Union Minister Ashwani Kumar for the ticket, has filed his nomination papers as an Independent.
An unfazed Raman Bhalla says Sharma’s presence in the electoral ring is meaningless but observers claim that the rebel will surely eat into the Congress vote bank. Moreover, with Master Mohan Lal, who has been denied the BJP ticket, extending his support to the BJP candidate Ashwani Sharma, Bhalla will have to work overtime if he has to emerge triumphant.
In Sujanpur, Naresh Puri, son of former Minister Raghunath Sahai Puri, is playing the rebel and is sure to damage the prospects of Congress candidate Vinay Mahajan. There was a fierce fight for the nomination among youth leader Vikram Joshi, backed by Rajya Sabha MP Rajiv Shukla, Chowdhury Rajbir, supported by Union Minister Ashwani Kumar, Vinay Mahajan and Naresh Puri. The moment Puri got to know that he was denied the ticket, he decided to turn rebel which has set the cat amongst the pigeons in the Vinay Mahajan camp.
In Dinanagar, where former MLA Aruna Chowdhury has been working at the grass root level for the last several years, there is absolutely no dissidence against her candidature. Even her political rivals hold her in awe and admit that they will have to work hard if they have to beat her because of the developmental projects Aruna initiated in the area during her term as MLA from 2002 to 2007. Moreover, her husband Ashok has been working in Dinanagar town where the Chowdhury family has a mass base.
Things were a bit dicey for former Minister Ashwani Sekhri in Batala but he has now managed to suppress the rebellion. Dr SS Nijjar, who is the Co-Chairman of the PPCC Doctor’s cell and was also a ticket aspirant, has extended support to Sekhri. He has also appealed to doctors of Majha region to vote en masse for Sekhri
In Qadian, there were specks of dissidence which have now been quelled by the politically astute Partap Bajwa, whose wife Charanjit Kaur is in the fray. Likewise, the party faces no revolt in Bhoa, Fatehgarh Churian, Sri Hargobindpur, Dera Baba Nanak and Gurdaspur seats.
