Former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has practically decided to abandon the battlefield before a crucial battle which his party faces.
Amarinder on Thursday was offering one excuse after the other so that the party does not force him to contest the polls from Amritsar against Arun Jaitley. Right from the plea of campaigning for his MP wife Preneet Kaur in Patiala to invitations from other contenders to canvass for him, Amarinder came out with a list of reasons for not contesting parliamentary polls from Amritsar.
His reluctance is being seen as a possible apprehension of defeat from a city he is virtually unfamiliar with, in political terms, and also an effort to make himself available for the chief minister’s seat in the assembly polls, scheduled to be held after three years.
At the same time, the Permanent Invitee in the Congress Working Committee (CWC) has also indicated that he may also contest from the holy city if the party high command wishes so, and is awaiting the decision of the Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
“I have made my intentions clear to the party president that I am not interested in contesting lok Sabha elections, and want to concentrate on my own seat in Patiala along with campaigning across the State. But, in case, the Congress chief want me to contest, I will do so…I am waiting for her decision,” Amarinder told The Pioneer.
The former MP contented that two members of the same family contesting on a few seats did not make a sense. “I think I will be more useful if I campaign campaigning across the state for all candidates,” he added. The State party chief Bajwa, while welcoming Amarinder’s “partial willingness” to enter lok Sabha electoral field from
Amritsar, said: “Amarinder will be an ideal candidate to take on BJP’s Arun Jaitley…the fight between the two will be an epic battle and the Congress will win it 110 per cent.”
Reacting, Amarinder said: “It doesn’t mean that I have to contest if the State Congress president wants. I will do whatever Congress national president Sonia Gandhi asked me to do.” It has been learnt that Amarinder’s name was floated in the party circles by Bajwa, in a strategic move to push him out of state politics.