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Amid tie-up buzz with SAD, Punjab BJP puts candidate selection for Lok Sabha polls on hold
Punjab BJP's state election committee delays candidate selection for Lok Sabha polls due to possible alliance talks with SAD, decision to be made by party high command.
Punjab BJP’s state election committee has put the selection of candidates for the Lok Sabha polls on hold amid a possible alliance with Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).
The selection committee that met on Thursday in Delhi has recommended 40 names for all 13 seats but as per the leader privy to development, the final decision will be taken by the party high command and further, it will be delayed by a few days amid talks with SAD.
The state election committee was chaired by Punjab chief Sunil Jakhar and included senior leaders like Punjab affairs in-charge and former Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani, Parliamentary board member Iqbal Singh Lalpura, national general secretary Tarun Chugh and other senior leaders.
According to a leader present in the meeting on Thursday in the national capital, Rupani has said that talks with the party’s old ally SAD were on and as such the final selection of candidates has been deferred.
“We were told that talks on alliance with SAD were going on at the high-command level and selection of candidates may take a few more days depending upon the outcome of the talks,” a senior leader, who was present in the meeting, said.
SAD had been part of the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) since 1996 and had walked out of the alliance in 2020, in the wake of the farm agitation against the Centre’s three contentious agri laws.
“We have prepared the names of all the possible candidates from all 13 LS seats in Punjab. Clarity of alliance may happen by the start of the next week,” said another senior leader.
As per sources, from Hoshiarpur, the state election committee has recommended names of sitting MP and Union minister Som Parkash and former Union minister Vijay Sampla whereas from Patiala name of Preneet Kaur has been included. From Anandhpur Sahib, state general secretary Subhash Sharma, senior party leader Avinash Rai Khanna and Ajayveer Lalpura, son of the national commission for minority Iqbal Singh Lalpura, have been included.
From Gurdaspur, former state BJP chief Ashwani Sharma, ex-MLA Dinesh Babbu and Kavita Khanna (wife of ex-BJP MP Vinod Khanna) have been recommended whereas from Ludhiana, former general secretary Jeewan Gupta, Praveen Bansal and party’s young Sikh face Parminder Brar have been included.
From Sangrur, the panel has included former MLA Kewal Dhillon, Arvind Khanna and national executive member of the party Harjeet Grewal.
From Jalandhar reserved, names of former state scheduled caste commission chairman Rajesh Bagha, ex-MLA Avinash Chandar, and Iqbal Singh Rinku Atwal have been included in the panel.
From the Ferozepur seat, former minister Surjit Jyani, Rana Sodhi and local leader Shivraj Chaudhary have been included whereas Rajinder Mohan Chinna Shawait Malik and Jagmohan Raju are in the fray from Amritsar.
