Kejriwal alleged that the cases of sacrilege and explosion were created to vitiate the peaceful atmosphere in the state and that a similar strategy was used in the run up to the previous polls.
Tag: Punjab Polls 2022
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Amarinder meets with Amit Shah, Nadda in Delhi
By PTI
NEW DELHI: Former Punjab chief minister and leader of the newly floated Punjab Lok Congress Amarinder Singh on Monday met with Union Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP national president J P Nadda here.
The BJP has announced that it will contest the Punjab assembly polls in alliance with Singh’s party.
The meeting is underway at Shah’s residence where all three are present.
Singh has been meeting various BJP leaders to chalk out a strategy for the Punjab elections.
Both parties are expected to take various offshoots of the Akali Dal on board and forge a bigger alliance.
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Sonia holds meeting with Congress MPs from poll-bound Punjab
By PTI
NEW DELHI: Congress president Sonia Gandhi held deliberations with the party MPs from Punjab on Thursday on the current political situation in the poll-bound state.
Though the details of what transpired at the meeting were not known, it was convened on a day when a blast took place in the Ludhiana district court complex, killing one person.
The meeting also comes in the wake of incidents of alleged sacrilege attempts at the Golden Temple in Amritsar and in Kapurthala, and the subsequent lynching of two men.
Sources said former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh’s wife Preneet Kaur, who is the Congress MP from Patiala, did not attend the meeting.
It is learnt that Gandhi sought the opinion of the MPs on the party’s prospects in the 2022 Punjab Assembly polls.
The meeting was held at the Congress chief’s 10, Janpath residence.
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BSP leadership sold party to SAD; AAP modern East India Company: Charanjit Singh Channi
By PTI
JALANDHAR: Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi on Friday accused the BSP leadership of backstabbing the Scheduled Castes community by “selling” the party to the Shiromani Akali Dal.
He also slammed the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), calling it the modern day East India Company aimed at “plundering the wealth of the state”, and said its national convener Arvind Kejriwal does not even know how to milk a cow.
Targeting the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), Channi said it no longer represents the ideology of its founder Kanshi Ram.
ALSO READ | Punjab polls: Kejriwal promises international airport in Jalandhar; Amarinder attacks Channi again
Its leadership backstabbed the Scheduled Castes community by “selling” the party to the Akali Dal, Channi said.
He alleged that the BSP “sold” 15 of 20 seats allotted to them to the Akali Dal.
The BSP leadership has made itself a “slave” of the Akali Dal, he added.
For the Assembly polls next year, the SAD has forged an alliance with the BSP.
As per the seat-sharing arrangement, the Mayawati-led party will fight 20 of the 117 Assembly seats in Punjab while the rest will be contested by the SAD.
Taking on AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal, the CM dared him to explain why Punjabis should believe him when his own “flock does not have faith in him”.
ALSO READ | ’Channi will end up as night watchman’: Amarinder slams Sidhu as Punjab Congress poll panel chief
He claimed three of four AAP MPs elected in 2014 have left the party and even 11 out of 20 MLAs elected in 2017 have too left.
Channi said this is indicative of the fact that the Aam Aadmi Party is a “house of cards that is bound to doom in a day or two”.
The chief minister said Kejriwal has no basic knowledge about the state due to which he does not know that in Punjab, every youth has to do multitasking every day for running his household.
Kejriwal does not even know how to milk a cow, what does he know about problems of the state, Channi said.
Terming AAP the “modern East India company”, he said Kejriwal’s party aims at “plundering wealth of the state”.
ALSO READ | Punjab CM Charanjit Singh Channi starts loan waiver scheme for SC, backward classes
Channi said he himself faced hardships, so he is well aware of problems of the common man.
Due to this reason only, he is ensuring optimal utilisation of all government funds for the well-being of the poor and common man, he claimed.
Addressing the gathering, former Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar urged people not to vote by falling in the “malicious” propaganda of any party.
“Those leaders who are teaching the lesson of nationalism to us today were nowhere in scene when India was fighting for freedom and only the Congress Party did the fighting,” he added.
In his address, AICC general secretary Harish Chaudhary slammed the Akalis, the BJP and the AAP leadership for working against the interest of the state.
He said Channi is the representative of the poorest of poor in the state.
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Punjab polls: Kejriwal promises international airport in Jalandhar; Amarinder attacks Channi again
Express News Service
CHANDIGARH: The entire Jalandhar city was painted in the color of patriotism on Wednesday with a tricolour in hands and reverberating slogans of “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”.
This was the view of the Tiranga Yatra (Tricolor procession) led by AAP’s National Convener and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal who is on a two-day visit to Punjab.
Kejriwal said, “It’s a wonderful tricolor procession. The people of Jalandhar showered us with lots of love. We want to make Punjab prosperous. We want to take the state forward by establishing peace and brotherhood here.”
He added, “India’s biggest Sports University will be built in Jalandhar when AAP is formed in Punjab in 2022.’’ Kejriwal said the people of Doaba, a stronghold of NRIs, have to go to Delhi, Chandigarh and Amritsar to catch flights.
“They won’t have to travel far to catch flights after the formation of the AAP government. ‘Aap Ki Sarkar’ will build an international airport in Jalandhar.”
Two children, who came in the march, gave their piggy bank money to Kejriwal as their contribution to the party fund.
Meanwhile, former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh on Wednesday targeted chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi over the alleged posting of the police officers in the state, asking why he did not order a probe into the issue.
Singh took a dig at Channi’s “alertness and promptness” in ordering a probe into the circumstances leading to the leaking of selective pages of a letter written by a senior police officer to the Director General of Police but hesitated to do the same over the issue of posting of police officers.
The former chief minister said Channi should have shown the same promptness when one of his ministerial colleagues had allegedly leveled serious charges of corruption in the appointment of the senior superintendents of police and deputy superintendents of police in the state, said a statement issued by the Amarinder Singh-led Punjab Lok Congress.
A few days ago, a Punjab minister had reportedly leveled allegations of acceptance of money in lieu of posting of district police chiefs.
The Akali Dal had then also demanded a probe into the accusations.
Amarinder Singh said he understood the “despair and frustration” of “this government” as it was getting “exposed with every passing day with every fake promise and announcement it made”.
“You would always ask for just two days of authority to put everyone behind the bars”, he said.
“What happened now, as you are already there for about three months and have not arrested a single person so far,” he added, apparently referring to Channi.
Channi on Tuesday had ordered registration of an FIR in connection with the leak of a letter written by a senior police officer who cited some legal hurdles in conducting reinvestigation in some drug cases against a senior Akali leader.
The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) requested the Election Commission on Wednesday to review the postings and transfers of Senior Superintendents of Police (SSPs) and other officers allegedly done with an “ulterior motive” of influencing the upcoming Punjab assembly polls.
In a representation to the full bench of the Election Commission of India (ECI) here, a two-member SAD delegation of Maheshinder Singh Grewal and Daljit Singh Cheema also urged the panel to appoint a regular director general of police on merit in the state to boost confidence of the people and also deploy central forces at polling booths, according to a party release.
It called for videography at all polling booths and requested the EC to issue directions to the state government to stop “misleading and bogus advertisements” at the cost of taxpayers’ money.
The SAD representation said the manner in which transfers were allegedly being done on “monetary concerns”, as reported by a section of the media, had put a big question mark on the conduct of the forthcoming assembly elections in a free and fair manner.
It said it was strange that in the last three months, the government could not appoint a regular DGP and had purposely appointed an acting DGP to keep senior officers on “tenterhooks and coerce” them into implementing its “political agenda of vendetta” against the SAD and its top leadership.
The ECI full bench arrived here on Wednesday on a two-day visit to take stock of the preparations for the Punjab assembly polls that are due early next year.
On the first day of the visit, Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra and Election Commissioners Rajiv Kumar and Anup Chandra Pandey held separate meetings with political representatives and officials of police and paramilitary forces, according to an official statement.
(With PTI Inputs)
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Eye on 2022 polls, AAP plans a Tiranga Yatra in Punjab on December 2
Express News Service
CHANDIGARH: With assembly elections in Punjab a couple of months away, Aam Aadmi Party is likely to take out a Tiranga Yatra in Pathankot on December 2. Earlier, the party had conducted a similar campaign in the poll-bound Uttar Pradesh. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will be leading the yatra. Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia will also take part in it.
The yatra is seen as an attempt to assuage the feelings of the Hindu community of Punjab. Hindu-dominated Pathankot has traditionally been a stronghold of BJP.
Meanwhile, AAP Punjab co-in-charge and MLA from Delhi, Raghav Chadha, has challenged Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi to provide Scheduled Caste (SC) families with 5-5 Marla plots and to immediately provide financial assistance of Rs 1 crore to all employees, especially who belong to SC, who lost their lives while discharging their duties during the covid pandemic.
Chadha said that if Channi did not do so, then after winning the 2022 elections in Punjab, Kejriwal would give 5-5 plots to SC families. All those martyred while doing their jobs would be given financial aid of `1 crore.
Supporting the demands of the employees working under the National Health Mission (NHM), AAP senior leader and Leader of Opposition, Harpal Singh Cheema said that upon the formation of AAP government in Punjab after the assembly elections, the NHM employees would be regularised.
Cheema along with the party’s Youth Wing co-president, Anmol Gagan Mann, visited the state-level dharna rally of the NHM employees in Kharar and met the protesters.
Community health officers, doctors, nurses, clerical and other contractual staff under the NHM participated in the rally.
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Amarinder to fight from Patiala in 2022 Punjab assembly polls
By PTI
CHANDIGARH: Former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh announced that he will fight from Patiala seat in the 2022 assembly elections.
“I will fight elections from Patiala only,” he posted on his ‘Punjab Da Captain’ Facebook page on Saturday.
“Patiala has been with us for the last 400 years and I will not leave it for the sake of (Navjot) Sidhu,” he added.
The Patiala assembly seat has been the family bastion of the former chief minister.
He had represented the seat four times — 2002, 2007, 2012 and 2017.
Amarinder had resigned as MLA in 2014 after being elected from the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat.
His wife Preneet Kaur then contested from Patiala and represented the seat for three years.
He had also in April dared Punjab Congress chief Navjot Sidhu to contest from Patiala, saying that the latter would lose his security deposit.
Amarinder resigned as the Punjab chief minister in September amid a bitter power tussle with Sidhu.
Charanjit Singh Channi had replaced Amarinder Singh.
After his unceremonious exit from the state government, Amarinder had said that he would pit a strong candidate against Sidhu in the 2022 assembly polls to ensure his defeat.
Amarinder, who named his political party as the Punjab Lok Congress, is hoping for a seat arrangement with the BJP for the upcoming elections.
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2022 Punjab Polls: SAD announces three more candidates
With this, SAD had announced the names of as many as 83 candidates out of the 97 assembly seats it will be contesting from in the upcoming Assembly polls.
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Punjab polls: Only sitting MLAs in AAP’s first candidate list
Express News Service
CHANDIGARH: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab on Friday released its first list of candidates for the upcoming Assembly election in the state. All the ten contestants in the list are sitting MLAs and have been allotted the same seats which they are currently representing.
The party had won 20 seats in the last Assembly polls but its strength in the House has almost halved in the last five years.
While five MLAs joined the Congress, two sitting legislators are unlikely to be given party tickets. Moreover, another MLA was disqualified and yet another one had quit politics for good.
As per the list released by Punjab AAP president Bhagwant Mann and Punjab affairs in-charge Jarnail Singh, the leader of opposition and AAP legislature party leader, Harpal Singh Cheema has been fielded again from Dirba, whereas his deputy Saravjit Kaur Manuke will contest from Jagraon.
Other candidates are Aman Arora from Sunam, Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer from Barnala, Kultar Singh Sandhwan from Kotkapura, Manjeet Bilaspur from Nihal Singh Wala, Jai Kishan Rori from Garhshankar, Baljinder Kaur from Talwandi Sabo, Budhram from Budhlada and Kulwant Pandori from Mehal Kalan.
Two sitting MLAs — Kanwar Sandhu and Amarjeet Singh Sandoa — were not included in the list as Kanwar had been suspended from the party while Sandoa joined the Congress and later returned to the AAP.
On Thursday Jagtar Singh Jagga Hissowal, MLA from Raikot (reserved), openly endorsed CM Charanjit Singh Channi in the Assembly.
Though Hissowal later said he won’t join the Congress but his action has left the AAP leadership red-faced. His name is also not in the list.
The party released the list after its sitting MLA Rupinder Kaur Ruby joined the Congress on Wednesday.
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Religion cards in offing at Punjab? SAD brass flocks temple eyeing 38 per cent Hindu votes
By Express News Service
CHANDIGARH: With Assembly elections just a couple of months away, political parties in Punjab are playing the religion card to woo Hindus and Sikhs.
With eye on the 38 per cent Hindu vote bank, Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal and other leaders reached Salasar Dham in Rajasthan as part of their recent visits to Hindu religious shrines.
Sources said Badal with a few MLAs and ex-MLAs paid obeisance to Balaji Maharaj at Salasar Dham. They prayed for peace, communal harmony and brotherhood in Punjab.
A few days ago during Navratri, Badal was in Chintpurni temple in Himachal Pradesh, other than visiting temples in Amritsar and Jalandhar.
Former Union minister and MP from Bathinda, Harsimrat Kaur Badal (Sukhbir’s wife) urged PM Narendra Modi to intervene and approve a proposal for a land swap between India and Pakistan for merger of the holy shrine at Kartarpur Sahib in India in exchange for a a suitable chunk of land elsewhere on the lines of the Hussainiwala village exchange.
She said this would be “the first step towards the eventual fulfilment of the sacred Sikh prayer for unhindered access and the right to perform service of the Guru in the sacred shrines taken away from the Sikh masses in 1947.” She urged Modi to get the Kartarpur Sahib corridor re-opened.
Meanwhile, Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu went to ICP at Kartarpur corridor on the Indo-Pak border demanding that the Centre should open the corridor so that Sikh pilgrims can visit gurdwaras in Pakistan.