Union Minister and senior Congress leader Manish Tewari is unlikely to contest the lok Sabha polls on grounds of ill health. Congress has not announced the party candidate for ludhiana and Tewari was expected to be re-nominated from the seat after his attempts to get a party’s nod to contest from Chandigarh proved futile.
Though not directly, Tewari had indicated his desire to contest from Chandigarh seat from where former Union Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal was re-nominated despite the Information & Broadcasting Minister’s clarion call for “no ticket for tainted”.
Tewari has been hospitalised at a private city hospital due to a heart ailment as he has not been keeping well for the past several days and had earlier gone to AIIMS for treatment.
For his part, without naming anyone, Bansal hit out at his detractors, who questioned his re-nomination from Chandigarh over the cash-for-post scam issue, claiming he was a victim of a conspiracy and had suffered despite there being no evidence against him.
Asked to respond to Tewari recently stressing that those having “taint” should not be given tickets, Bansal said he would not like to comment on this. “It was a conspiracy against me, a malicious campaign was run. This conspiracy should have been over eight months ago. After months of probe, when no proof was found against me, the
charge sheet did not name me,” the 65-year-old leader said in Chandigarh.
Tewari however trashed reports that he was keen on changing his constituency, saying he was prepared to fight from ludhiana if his party decided to field him.
Reacting to the Congress’s development in Punjab, SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal said Congress is a demoralised party as several of its leaders including Tewari and State Punjab Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa are running away from the electoral battle.
Referring to Tewari’s illness, Badal said he felt sad but then took a jibe and added, “he (Tewari) is running away from contesting polls.”