After Jalandhar success, AAP picks Bhagwant Mann to replicate win in Haryana

Ruchika M Khanna

Chandigarh, July 17

After a big win in the Jalandhar West bypoll, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has been asked to help the Aam Aadmi Party in its Haryana poll campaign, to be launched on Thursday.

Mann, along with AAP general secretary (organisation) Sandeep Pathak and Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh, will launch the party’s campaign for the Haryana Vidhan Sabha elections, scheduled to be held later this year.

CM to tackle issue of land for highways

• CM Bhagwant Mann has decided to take the issue of delays in land acquisition for the national highways into his own hands
• He said he would talk to farmers and discuss their issues regarding compensation; the state government has taken two-month time from the Centre for resolving the issue
• The move comes after Union Road Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari pulled up state officials at a meeting in Delhi on July 15

Earlier, Mann had also campaigned for the party’s lone Lok Sabha candidate from Kurukshetra Sushil Gupta. With the party supremo Arvind Kejriwal incarcerated, the onus of leading the AAP campaign in poll-bound Haryana lies on these three leaders.

Talking to The Tribune, on the sidelines of the swearing-in ceremony of AAP’s newly elected MLA from Jalandhar West, Mohinder Bhagat, the CM, who is also the Punjab unit president of AAP, said he would campaign in Haryana.

“If the elections to Dera Baba Nanak, Chabbewal, Barnala and Gidderbaha Assembly segments are held simultaneously with the Haryana bypoll, I will have to shuttle between the two states, though as Punjab CM, my attention and energies will be required more in Punjab,” he said.

“We have just come out of the model code of conduct that remained enforced since March, first for the Lok Sabha poll and then for the Jalandhar bypoll. I will utilise the time before the four byelections for formulating and implementing new people-oriented schemes, before I once again go to the voters seeking mandate for my government,” he added.

If the success in the Jalandhar West bypoll was a personal victory for CM Bhagwant Mann, considering that he led the campaign from the front, he was graceful in his success, as he oversaw the swearing-in ceremony of Mohinder Bhagat here.

Dispelling all rumours of a rift within the state unit of the party, Mann and Speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan met “warmly” and continued to chat in a light hearted manner for almost an hour, after the brief oath-taking ceremony of the newly elected MLA. The bonhomie between the CM and the Speaker drew everybody’s attention as they continued to crack jokes and discus various things.

Interestingly, none of the 14 ministers in the state cabinet were present at the ceremony held on the Punjab Vidhan Sabha premises. Only a few MLAs, including Dr Vijay Garg, Ajitpal Singh Kohli, Barinder Kumar Goyal, Narinder Sawna and Karambir Singh Ghuman, besides Deputy Speaker Jai Krishan Singh, were present on the occasion.