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Punjab: Focus on winning Jalandhar at any cost, Mann tells party leaders, MLAs
Cabinet minister Balkar Singh, Nakodar MLA Inderjit Kaur, Jalandhar Central MLA Raman Arora and three in-charges of nine assembly segments of Jalandhar Lok Sabha were present at the meeting
Chief minister Bhagwant Mann on Sunday held a closed-door meeting with party MLAs and officer bearers at a local hotel in Jalandhar on Sunday to discuss strategies for the Lok Sabha elections.
Cabinet minister Balkar Singh, Nakodar MLA Inderjit Kaur, Jalandhar Central MLA Raman Arora and three in-charges of nine assembly segments of Jalandhar Lok Sabha were present at the meeting.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had announced its sitting MP Sushil Kumar Rinku, as a candidate from Jalandhar on March 14. However, Rinku quit the party on March 27 and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has also fielded him from the same constituency. Along with Rinku, AAP Jalandhar West MLA Sheetal Angural, also quit and joined the saffron party.
In the Jalandhar Lok Sabha bypoll last year, Rinku recorded a landslide victory with a margin of 58,691 votes, polling 3,02,279 votes. He had emerged as a key Dalit leader in the Doaba region.
To date, AAP has candidates for nine seats including NRI affairs minister Kuldeep Dhaliwal from Amritsar, transport minister Laljit Bhullar from Khadoor Sahib, sports minister Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer from Sangrur, agriculture minister Gurmeet Khudian from Bathinda, health minister Dr Balbir Singh from Patiala, former MLA Gurpreet Singh GP from Fatehgarh Sahib, AAP state chief spokesperson Malvinder Singh Kang from Anandpur Sahib, ex-MLA Dr Raj Kumar Chabbewal, who joined the AAP from the Congress last month, from the Hoshiarpur (reserved) parliamentary constituency and Karamjeet Anmol from the Faridkot Lok Sabha constituency.
Mann urged his workers to put in collective efforts to wrest the Dalit-dominated Jalandhar Parliamentary seat, which was once considered a Congress stronghold.
“All the focus is on Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat and the party wants to win this seat again at any cost,” the CM told the gathering present at the meeting.
Mann said that earlier, the Sangrur Lok Sabha constituency used to be the stronghold of the Aam Aadmi Party, and now Jalandhar has been added to it.
“Jalandhar is now also seen as AAP stronghold along with Sangrur. Both the seats are very important for us. We have a special focus on both and we have to win them at any cost. A collective effort is needed from all to win this seat,” he said.
Mann said that they do not need to pay attention to Rinku leaving AAP and joining BJP.
“He (Rinku) betrayed the party and the public will give him a befitting answer in the elections. Rinku was made an MP by the Aam Aadmi Party and got recognition, but he betrayed us. He has no personal support base,” the CM added.
During the meeting, Mann asked all the MLAs, and office bearers to publicise the people’s welfare works and decisions of the AAP government in the last two years vigorously.
“Our government has done so much work in just two years that the previous governments did not do in the last seventy years. We need to tell people about our work and decisions,” he said.
