Jalandhar LS bypoll: CM Mann holds roadshow, says corrupt won’t be spared

Says this is AAP’s first election since it was declared a national party, and it will go all out to ensure Rinku’s victory

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) sounded its poll bugle for the Jalandhar Lok Sabha byelection with party candidate Sushil Kumar Rinku filing his nomination papers in the presence of chief minister Bhagwant Mann on Monday.

Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann during a roadshow before the nomintion filing of AAP candidate Sushil Kumar Rinku for Jalandhar Lok Sabha bypoll in Jalandhar on Monday. (PTI)

Mann, accompanied by cabinet ministers and AAP MLAs, held a roadshow before reaching the deputy commissioner’s office, where the nomination formalities were completed.

“We have sounded our poll bugle. Now campaigning will be intensified to highlight party policies and welfare work done by the state government in the past one year,” Mann said.

He said this is AAP’s first election since it was declared a national party, and it will go all out to ensure Rinku’s victory. “AAP leaders and workers will go from village to village to woo voters,” he added.

Mann said opposition parties were stunned by the rising popularity of the AAP and were trying their best to defame its leaders.

Rinku, a former Congress MLA, was given the AAP ticket a day after he joined the party on April 5.

The Jalandhar Lok Sabha byelection was necessitated after Santokh Singh Chaudhary, the sitting MP, died after suffering a heart attack during Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra on January 14.

Addressing the gathering, CM Mann said the state government is the property of the people, and the AAP government has always focused on taking pro-people decisions.

“In the coming days, we are going to take key decisions. People will come to know about it when they see bulldozers moving. We will end the corrupt system, and corrupt politicians will be dealt with stringently,” Mann said.

He added that the AAP brought honest leaders forward because they know how to do development, how to build schools, hospitals and mohalla clinics, how to give free electricity and how to generate employment.

On the opposition’s allegations of not providing adequate compensation to farmers for the crop loss due to inclement weather, Mann said his government had started distributing compensation within 20 days of the announcement.

“When I announced the compensation, the opposition said it was not possible to deliver within 20 days, but when we did it, now they are saying that it hasn’t reached everyone,” Mann said.

Mann said that Jalandhar falls under a smart city scheme, but no development has been done because of the lack of intentions of traditional political parties and their leaders.

CM Mann also informed that Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal will address an election rally on April 20.

Meanwhile, a few contractual teachers protested, showing banners seeking job regularisation, when CM Mann was addressing the gathering.

Former cabinet minister Fauja Singh Sarari, who resigned from the Punjab cabinet after his alleged audio clip with his close associate went viral in which they could be purportedly heard discussing a plan to extort money, was also present at the roadshow.

Surjit Thapar is UPP’s candidate for Jalandhar LS bypoll

Meanwhile, the United Punjab Party (UPP), a political outfit announced by Pentecostal Christian Parbandhak Committee, announced Surjit Thapar as its candidate for the Jalandhar Lok Sabha bypoll on Monday.

UPP’s first president Albert Dua said the party was formed on April 3 by Harpreet Deol, who heads Jesus Healing Ministries at Khojewala village in Kapurthala district. He said they would fight for the rights of the Christian community and work for the welfare of the people irrespective of caste. HTC