Testing political waters for the first time, model-turned-politician Gul Panag, Aam Aadmi Party’s candidate from Chandigarh, found that it was entirely different from the glamour world from where she hails from.
Starting her political campaign in the city by visiting the relocated denizens of Colony No. 5, at Dhanas, Panag, who has been earlier, associated with the show business in the tinsel town of Mumbai, found that the issues she found were beyond comprehension and solution. Besides generic issues of price rise and corruption, there are other basic civic issues, which have been haunting the people dwelling in the relocated colony, something she found difficult to fathom.
Putting up a brave face after getting firsthand information on the problems, she said, “There are many issues to be addressed in Chandigarh. People residing in the colonies lack basic civic amenities like lack of connectivity, water shortage and little or no healthcare.” Taking potshots at the ruling Congress, Panag said that to score some brownie point, the Prime Minister who inaugurated the rehabilitation houses in Dhanas, overlooked the suffering of the people who were being relocated. In a haste it was not taken into consideration that people are being removed away from their place of service and even the construction of the houses are of cheap quality, she said.
During her visit, she chatted with the women residing in the colony and felt that the condition of the women were far more pitiable since basic needs like potable drinking water was not available. To make a secular statement on the very first day Gul Panag visited a mosque, a temple, a church and a gurudwara to seek blessings of the Almighty to succeed in her new avatar.
Answering about the dichotomy of her future as an actor and a politician, she said that her first priority is to work for the people of Chandigarh and if given a chance, she would focus more on her political career. She said, “There are issues which are to be addressed and I will try my level best to bring them at the forefront. I don’t have solution to each and every problem of the people but with time and with equal participation from our voters, we will try and find out a solution.”