With focus on the high profile political battle in Amritsar where BJP heavyweight Arun Jaitley takes on Capt Amarinder Singh of the Congress, the other two BJP candidates in Punjab feel let down.
Three-time MP and SAD-BJP combine’s candidate from Gurdaspur lok Sabha constituency Vinod Khanna has approached the party’s Central leadership urging the senior leadership to concentrate on the other two seats, that party’s candidates are contesting — Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur, too.
Khanna alleged that too much attention was being paid by both the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders to the Amritsar seat, while the rest of the constituencies have taken a backseat.
Not only Khanna, but almost all the candidates of the ruling combine, except Jaitley and sitting Akali MP from Bathinda Harsimrat Kaur Badal, who is seeking her re-election, are feeling overlooked, especially from the saffron party.
While the Akali Dal senior leadership, including Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and his deputy son and party president Sukhbir Badal are giving all their time to campaign for the party candidates, the BJP candidates — Khanna and Vijay Sampla from Hoshiarpur — are facing a tough time in their campaigning.
Sources told The Pioneer that while Sampla is trying to manage things on his own and have taken up the issue with the State party chief Kamal Sharma, Khanna has expressed his displeasure with the BJP high command. The entire cadre of the SAD and the BJP has infused their full energy in the election campaign of senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley in Amritsar, who has been persuaded by the senior leadership of the ruling combine assuring his victory in his first lok Sabha hustings.
Earlier considered to be a cakewalk for him to win the seat, the going gets tough after the Congress party strategically decided to field former Chief Minister and the “tallest leader” in the State party unit, Capt Amarinder Singh.
With Capt Amarinder in the fray, the Congress party has not only raised the bar for April 30 polls in the State, but has also given clear indication regarding its seriousness with which it is raking these polls in Punjab, especially after series of defeats in a row.
On the other hand, the Congress party, in another tactical move to limit Badals to their bastion — Bathinda, has decided to field Badal’s estranged nephew Manpreet Badal against his daughter-in-law Harsimrat Kaur Badal from the constituency.
Albeit, the Badal father-son duo are campaigning for all the Akali candidates on its 10 lok Sabha seats, besides Jaitley. Moreover, they are also campaigning in Haryana and the New Delhi.
As a part of the same strategy, the party has fielded the state Congress chief and the sitting Gurdaspur MP Partap Singh Bajwa notwithstanding his reluctance. Bajwa defeated Khanna, after his three consecutive wins, in 2009 lok Sabha polls by a margin of over 8,342 votes.
Even though Khanna has been claiming to wrest the seat on the grounds of Bajwa’s absence from his constituency, poor State of affairs in the constituency, and bringing no development to the area, he is facing barbs by his rivals who are dubbing him as an “outsider” for which he is looking at the party cadre’s aggressive role and support.
Contesting lok Sabha polls for the first time, Vijay Sampla has also expressed his dissatisfaction over the party’s support and attention to his Hoshiarpur seat. Even as some of the Akali candidates also have the same feeling, the Badals are taking care of them.
“There is nothing like that at all. Party is taking care of each and everything. It is only that elections in Punjab are late and senior leaders are busy in campaigning in other states where elections are early, and they could not be here,” state BJP chief Kamal Sharma told The Pioneer.
He added that rallies of several senior national leaders will be organised after April 10 elections in several states, including Chandigarh, and Haryana.