Lacklustre show so far, Cong tells MPs, ministers to hit campaign trail

CHANDIGARH: To push the lacklustre campaign for the October 21 bypoll to the four Assembly segments — Jalalabad, Dakha, Phagwara and Mukerian, the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) today directed its Members of Parliament (MPs), barring Patiala MP Preneet Kaur, to campaign aggressively for the party candidates.

Rajmeet Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, October 9

To push the lacklustre campaign for the October 21 bypoll to the four Assembly segments — Jalalabad, Dakha, Phagwara and Mukerian, the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) today directed its Members of Parliament (MPs), barring Patiala MP Preneet Kaur, to campaign aggressively for the party candidates.

In the campaign schedule, revised on the instructions of Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, seven of the eight party MPs have been divided among the four Assembly segments.

For Dakha, Ludhiana MP Ravneet Bittu and Fatehgarh Sahib MP Amar Singh have been asked to camp. The MPs apart, three senior Cabinet ministers Bharat Bhushan Ashu, Sukhbinder Sarkaria and Vijay Inder Singla have also been deputed in Dakha from where CM’s political secretary Capt Sandeep Sandhu is in the fray.

With the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) bagging a considerable number of votes, especially in Doaba region, in the recently held parliamentary elections, Congress leaders feel that in the Phagwara Assembly segment they can have advantage for supporting the recent Ravidassia community' agitation over the demolition of Guru Ravidas Temple at Tughlakabad in Delhi.

The party has put MP Chaudhary Santokh Singh, apart from Dalit ministers Charanjit Singh Channi and Aruna Chaudhary, apart from Chabbewal MLA Raj Kumar, who lost to Union Minister of State Som Parkash from Hoshiarpur in the last Lok Sabha elections. Balwinder Singh Dhaliwal, a former bureaucrat, is the party candidate from Phagwara.

Party sources said for the Mukerian seat, earlier represented by late Rajneesh Kumar Babbi, Anandpur Sahib MP Manish Tewari and Amritsar MP Gurjeet Aujla have been asked to camp. This is besides Cabinet ministers Tript Rajinder Bajwa, Razia Sultana and Om Parkash Soni, who have been allocated the constituency for electioneering. The party ticket from Mukerian has been given Babbi's wife Indu Bala.

For the Jalalabad segment, a stronghold of the Akalis, two MPs Mohammed Sadiq and Jasbir Singh Dimpa have been asked to campaign for the party candidate, Raminder Amla. Five ministers Sadhu Singh Dharamsot, Manpreet Badal, Balbir Singh Sidhu, Gurpreet Kangar and Rana Gurmeet Sodhi have been deputed to serve the purpose.