Channi meets Congress councillors to weigh byelection prospects

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj

Jalandhar, June 19

Newly elected Congress MP from Jalandhar Charanjit Singh Channi has started meeting the party councillors from Jalandhar West constituency, whose number is very few in the party. One of the Congress councillors said that it has become a ‘prestige issue’ for the party and there is pressure to perform in the Assembly bypoll after doing well in the Lok Sabha elections.

On June 18, Channi along with senior leader Rajinder Beri had met former councillor Onkar Tikka and other party workers.

Tikka said that he has been reaching out to the people with various promises. “We will definitely win this bypoll too. People have shown their faith in Congress during the Lok Sabha elections and the result will definitely reflect in the upcoming Jalandhar West bypoll,” he added.

In Jalandhar, when the Congress-led Municipal Corporation was formed in 2017, there were 65 councillors from the party. Until 2022, everything was hunky dory but changes came after the AAP came to power in Punjab. Nearly 55 party councillors left the Congress and there were hardly 10 councillors left with the party while the others had switched sides. Also, last year’s Lok Sabha bypoll result had almost confirmed it when Sushil Kumar Rinku got elected on an AAP ticket. But Channi’s continuous press and media interactions and presence proved to be a great push for him.