Storm is brewing within the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) days after it released its first list of 69 candidates for 2017 Punjab State Assembly polls.
Within 48 hours of announcement of names on Wednesday evening, two of its sitting MlAs — Sarwan Singh Phillaur and Avinash Chander — have resigned from the party for denying ticket, while another one is in the offing. Several others are also expressing their resentment for ignoring their candidature in ticket allocation.
If that is not enough, six-time MlA and former Minister Phillaur, who put in his papers just a day before, joined the Congress party on Friday.
Unhappy for ignoring his candidature from Kartarpur assembly segment, Phillaur wasted no time to bid adieu to Akali Dal. In fact, the former minister lashed out at the Badals for “victimising Dalits” in the presence of Punjab Congress chief and former Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh.
Phillaur was considered among the tallest leaders of Akali Dal in Doaba region of the state and is expected to give a major boost to the Congress in the region. Known to be a staunch loyalist of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, Phillaur became an MlA for the first time in 1977 when he was just 26.
He represented Phillaur constituency in Jalandhar district five times before he was shifted in 2012 to Kartarpur where he managed to win by a narrow margin of around 800 votes.
Phillaur, Punjab’s former Minister¸ was asked to put in his papers after the name of his son, Damanvir Singh, was surfaced in multi-crore drug racket and was summoned for questioning by the Enforcement Directorate.
Reports are that he was denied ticket on the same grounds, besides party’s former chief parliamentary secretary Avinash Chander, who also announced his resignation on Friday, not only from the party, but also from the Vidhan Sabha after denying SAD ticket to contest from Phillaur (reserved) constituency.
Chander sent his resignation to the Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal maintaining that he was resigning from the assembly on moral grounds after quitting the party.
Chander is the fourth Akali legislator, after Phillaur, Olympian Pargat Singh, and Inderbir Singh Bolaria who left the party in the recent months — making bumpy the party’s road to 2017 polls.
Already, all of the 42 Congress MlAs along with one Independent have resigned over the Satluj-Yamuna link (SYl) canal issue. Other than that, two more independent legislators and one BJP MlA Dr Navjot Kaur Sidhu had also resigned.
Another party MlA from Nihal Singh Wala assembly segment, Rajwinder Kaur Bhagike, is also expected to bid farewell to the Akali Dal as she was weighing the options of contesting independently.
Bhagike, who had contested 2012 polls for the first time, managed to secure her seat in Vidhan Sabha by riding high on the popularity wave of her of father-in-law and senior Akali leader Jaura Singh Bhagike.
SAD has shifted former bureaucrat and sitting MlA SR Kler from Jagraon to Nihal Singh Wala while fielding a first-timer in his place from Jagraon.
Upset, Bhagike has now planned to hold a joint meeting of her supporters on Saturday to decide the future course of action. “My next decision would depend upon what my party workers
decided for me,” Bhagike told The Pioneer.
A section of SAD leaders believed that Bhagike enjoyed great support in the area, especially because of her clean image. They believed that by fielding an outsider from Nihal Singh Wala, the party has surrendered their strong seat.
In 2012, Bhagike won by a skimpy margin of 591 votes from Congress’ Ajit Singh Shant, who later joined SAD and in now contesting 2017 polls on as Akali candidate from Mehal Kalan.
The list of SAD rebels is not over. Upset over SAD’s decision to field Sarabjit Singh Makkar from Jalandhar Cantonment constituency, party’s Jalandhar (urban) district president Gurcharan Singh Channi has also raised a banner of revolt. His resign is also expected anytime.
Jalandhar Cantt, represented by India’s former hockey team captain Pargat Singh, fall vacant after he left SAD and joined hands with the former MP Navjot Singh Sidhu’s apolitical front Awaaz-e-Punjab.
Channi, who was also vying for the ticket, was upset for fielding his arch-rival Makkar while ignoring his stakes. He is likely to meet party chief and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal on Saturday before taking the
final decision of resigning from the party.
Furthermore, the announcement of former MlA lakhbir Singh lodhinangal’s candidature from Batala has created unrest among BJP as talks between the two alliance partners were on over swapping Batala assembly segment with Amritsar East.