Taking the lead in announcing candidates for 2019 elections, the Aam Aadmi Party on Tuesday named five candidates for the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab.
Apart from sitting MPs Bhagwant Mann (Sangrur) and Sadhu Singh (Faridkot), party to field Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal from Amritsar. He is incharge of party’s Makha zone. Dr Ravjot Singh will be the candidate from Hoshiarpur. He is also a zone president and has unsuccessfully contested the last Assembly election. Narinder Singh Shergill will fight election from Anandpur Sahib. He is presently chairperson of finance committee of AAP.
Talking to mediapersons, AAP Baljinder Kaur said dedicated volunteers who have stood by the party through thick and thin have been choses. They can now begin work in their constituencies to highlight misdeeds of the BJP at the Centre, she said.
Earlier, the AAP’s senior leader Gopal Rai had said they will announce its Lok Sabha candidates from Delhi only after “reviewing” the individual performances of the constituency prabharis in leading the door-to-door campaign, launched by Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal.
Rai had said that the names are expected by late December or early January towards the last leg of the campaign, through which the party aims to cover “every household” in the city.
Kejriwal had on October 11 said that his party will contest all the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab and not enter into alliance. “We will fight on all Lok Sabha seats from the state, we will not enter into any tie-up with anyone,” Kejriwal, who was in Bathinda to attend a party legislator’s wedding, told reporters.
He lashed out at the ruling Congress in the state and accused it of failing on all fronts.
“He (Amarinder) had promised to give a job in each family. He had said if anyone is unemployed then he will be given unemployment allowance. He had talked about raising social security pension, waiving debt of farmers, promised smartphones to youths. Only tall promises were made, but none have been fulfilled. He spoke lies and now people of Punjab are fed up with them,” he alleged.
Kejriwal said Singh had promised to wipe out drug problem from the state, but it was still there.
He also charged the Congress government of failing to act on the Justice Ranjit Singh Commission’s inquiry report on incidents of religious sacrilege in the state.
“Justice Ranjit Singh Commission report puts the Badals in the dock. Despite this, Captain Sahab (Singh) is not taking any action against them. No FIR has been registered against them, because they are hand-in-glove… People are finding viable alternative in the shape of the AAP,” he said.
