Barnala nominee slams rivals over ‘parivarvaad’
The BJP has fielded its state vice-president Kewal Singh Dhillon from Barnala for the November 13 Assembly byelection.
Dhillon, who had been twice elected as legislator from the constituency on the Congress ticket, had switched to the BJP on June 4, 2022. Later that month, he contested the Sangrur Lok Sabha byelection on the party ticket, but lost to Simranjit Singh Mann of the SAD(A).
A former Congress man, Dhillon was elected as Barnala MLA in 2007 and 2012. In 2019, he had contested Lok Sabha election from the Sangrur constituency on Congress ticket and lost to AAP’s Bhagwant Singh Mann.
He was also a force behind the creation of Barnala as a district in the year 2006 during the regime of former Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh.
Talking to The Tribune, Dhillon said, “I am now in a political party (BJP) that believes in only one nation, while AAP, the Congress and the SAD believe in ‘parivarvaad’.”
Dhillon said the AAP government failed on all fronts in the state, be it drugs, law and order, or financial health. He said if elected, he would raise the issues of the Barnala constituency as well as those of state in the Punjab Assembly. Due to the ‘wrong’ policies of the AAP Government, Punjab was on the verge of bankruptcy, he added.
He claimed that by winning the Barnala seat, he would lay the foundation of the BJP government in Punjab in 2027.
