Sheetal Angural’s ‘set-up’ to accept CM Bhagwant Mann’s challenge in bypoll-bound Jalandhar West

Deepkamal Kaur

Jalandhar, July 4
Ex-MLA and BJP candidate Sheetal Angural on Thursday set up a tent and erected two chairs at Babu Jagjivan Ram Chowk in the bypoll-bound Jalandhar West area, waiting for Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to arrive to receive a pen drive in his possession of the audio recordings against Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leaders over extortion allegations.

Angural has got a relatively high chair put up for the CM and a smaller one for himself for the scheduled debate event. Angural had past midnight accepted Mann’s challenge, who during a roadshow on Wednesday evening had dared him to make the audio tapes public right away without waiting for July 5 release date announced by him earlier. Angural had on Monday said that he was in possession of 40 audio recordings against some AAP leaders, who had been collecting crores of rupees from those engaged in illegal business, including betting, lotteries and gambling.

Mann, however, is unlikely to make it to the venue. Most politicians, including Leader of Opposition Partap Bajwa are expecting the event to be akin to the one scheduled by Bhagwant Mann at Punjab Agricultural University in Ludhiana, wherein the CM had accepted the challenge from opposition parties to debate on the issues affecting Punjab.

The CM too had then laid chairs in a similar fashion, had himself sat on his chair highlighting that the Opposition had run away from debate on him. Angural perhaps is playing the same trick on Mann right at the time when only six days are remaining for the July 10 byelection. Angural was AAP MLA from Jalandhar West and had quit in March this year to join BJP, thus necessitating this bypoll.