Top leadership of Punjab unit of the BJP is set to put its head together on January 10 to deliberate on the names of candidates for the three parliamentary seats it contests in alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).
The saffron party would discuss the strategy for 2014 lok Sabha elections on Friday in Amritsar in its core committee meeting, besides names of prospective candidates for Amritsar, Hoshiarpur, and Gurdaspur seats. The meeting would be chaired by party’s national organising secretary Ram lal, and attended by the entire State BJP leadership. Participation of State party affairs in-charge Shanta Kumar was not yet confirmed.
“The meeting would primarily take up all the issues relating the parliamentary polls. The names of candidates would be discussed, and effort would be made to finalise the same as the lok Sabha elections are approaching,” a senior BJP leader told The Pioneer. It is expected that the party would hunt for new face to substitute cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu. Sidhu’s defiant attitude had brought much shame to the ruling combine in past.
As of now, the names doing the round in the party circles are that of senior BJP leader and leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley, former State cabinet Minister laxmi Kanta Chawla, party’s State vice-president Rajinder Mohan Chhina, besides the State party president Kamal Sharma, among others.
On the other hand, for the Hoshiarpur parliamentary seat, the names of Chief Parliamentary Secretary (CPS) and sitting MlA Som Parkash and Punjab State Forest Development Corporation chairman Vijay Sampla are being discussed.