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AAP’s third list: Ex-Akali, Congman gets ticket from Samana
Former Akali leader Jagtar Singh Rajala, 50, has got the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) ticket for the Punjab assembly elections from Samana, from where he was once elected as a state legislator in 1997.
Former Akali leader Jagtar Singh Rajala, 50, has got the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) ticket for the Punjab assembly elections from Samana, from where he was once elected as a state legislator in 1997.
Rajala is among 29 candidates on the party’s third list announced by senior leaders Sanjay Singh, Durgesh Pathak and Bhagwant Mann in Chandigarh on Friday evening.
A Gurcharan Singh Tohra loyalist, Rajala had joined the Congress in 2011, and later moved to the AAP in 2015. Soon after he joined the AAP, his wife was booked by the Patiala police in an alleged paddy embezzlement case, which she had termed “politically motivated”.
Read | Khaira gets ticket; Kanwar Sandhu, former wrestler Kartar also on 3rd list
FORMER DIST CONG CHIEF AMONG CONTESTANTS
Apart from Rajala, another former Congressman — Lakhbir Singh Rai, 46, who remained the president of Fatehgarh Sahib district Congress — has got the ticket from Fatehgarh Sahib, leaving some local AAP volunteers unhappy.
Rai parted ways with the Congress after he was denied ticket in 2012 assembly polls. He joined the AAP in January this year and is currently working as the convener of party’s RTI wing.
A law graduate from Punjabi University, Patiala, he has been practising in the Fatehgarh Sahib courts.
FROM FIGHTING FOR JOB TO FIGHTING POLLS
From the Bhadaur reserved seat, unemployed linemen union president Parimal Singh, 27, will be fighting the assembly polls on the AAP ticket.
He has been leading protests to get jobs for lineman diploma holders like him. Earlier this year, he started an indefinite protest against the Punjab government at Patiala, but cops lifted him from the dharna site and got him hospitalised.
STUDENT LEADER TO RAISE YOUTH’S VOICE
A student union leader, Meet Heyar, 27, has been given the ticket from Barnala, from where Punjab’s ‘richest candidate’ Kewal Singh Dhillon has won twice on the Congress ticket. Heyar, an engineering graduate, is said to be close to Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann and is the vice-president of the AAP youth wing.
ANOTHER JOURNO JOINS THE CLUB
A vernacular scribe, too, has made the cut on the list that also features senior journalist Kanwar Sandhu. Kulwant Singh Pandhuri, who has studied till Class 12, will contest the elections from the Mehal Kalan reserved seat. The 44-year-old has also remained the president of the local press club.
