Key Seat Amritsar North: Last-minute switchover may upset equations

Neeraj Bagga

Amritsar, February 19

The political scenario in the Amritsar North constituency has further heated up just before the polling day, as political parties are not leaving any stone unturned to make their mark.

Greenhorn in politics, former IG Kunwar Vijay Pratap Singh of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) received a shot in the arm after sitting mayor Karamjit Singh Rintu, a long-time Congress leader, switched over to the AAP.

Rintu had lobbied hard to get the Congress ticket during the last parliamentary election. Rintu, a Jat Sikh, may be fielded as AAP’s Lok Sabha nominee in the next General Election.

Being a mayor of the city, his area of jurisdiction includes all five urban Assembly segments and it may have a bearing on the poll outcome.

This time he was keen on the North seat, but since it is a predominantly Hindu area, his candidature was not considered, sources said.

On the other hand, the political career of SAD candidate Anil Joshi is at stake. A three-time BJP MLA, he was expelled by the saffron outfit after he spoke out against the enactment of the three farm laws. A Cabinet minister in the erstwhile Parkash Singh Badal government, Joshi had lost the 2017 Assembly election by 14,236 votes to Congress’ Sunil Dutti.

Once a close aide of Joshi, Sukhminder Singh Pintu is contesting on the BJP ticket. He is banking on the core cadre-based votes of the saffron party. However, these conventional voters who come from trading families are irked at the BJP for clamping tax on textile, readymade garments and others and introduction of the cumbersome GST.