E-Paper
BJP appoints Gajendra Sekhawat Punjab affairs in-charge for 2022 assembly polls
Union ministers Hardip Singh Puri, Meenakshi Lekhi and Lok Sabha MP Vinod Chawra named co-incharges for the Punjab elections
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Wednesday appointed Union cabinet minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat as its Punjab affairs in-charge in the run-up to the assembly elections early next year.
Besides Shekhawat, the Jal Shakti minister in the Narendra Modi cabinet, Union ministers Hardip Singh Puri and Meenakshi Lekhi and Lok Sabha MP Vinod Chawra have been appointed co-incharges for the Punjab elections, according to the directions issued by party national president JP Nadda.
Shekhawat is second-time MP from the Jodhpur constituency of Rajasthan. He is known as an astute political manager having strong eyes on the ground. He had also convened a meeting of both Haryana and Punjab on the contentious issue of the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) on the directions of the Supreme Court.
Puri, Union minister for petroleum and urban development who is the only Sikh face in the Modi cabinet, had unsuccessfully contested from the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat in the 2019 general elections. Lekhi, Union minister of state for external affairs, belongs to the Punjabi community in the national capital and is an MP from New Delhi.
In the BJP rank and file, these appointments are being seen as a reflection of the seriousness of the party in contesting the Punjab assembly elections in 2022.
Punjab is being counted as the toughest for the BJP from the states going to the polls early next year.
The stakes are high for the saffron party this time in Punjab as it has announced to contest all 117 assembly seats amid an unprecedented backlash against its state and central leadership in the state due to the farmers’ protests against the three agriculture laws.
Earlier, the BJP used to contest the Punjab elections in 23 constituencies in alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) that snapped ties with it over the three laws.
With these appointments, the BJP has sounded a poll bugle in Punjab as the entire command of the state unit will be in the hands of new election incharges.
Party leaders claim that this is for the first time that the party has appointed election incharges for Punjab when there are more than five months left for the polls.
“The party is fully gearing up for the polls and these appointments show that we will fight in Punjab with full might,” said state BJP chief Ashwani Sharma.
The party on Wednesday also started preparations for the constituency-level workers’ meetings starting from September 20 in Amritsar.
