The Congress on Wednesday nominated its Punjab unit president Sunil Jakhar, a loyalist of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, to contest Gurdaspur Lok Sabha by-election scheduled on October 11. Jakhar (63), a three-time MLA from Abohar and a former Congress Legislative Party (CLP) leader, was pitted in the intra-party battle against Amarinder’s bête noire and former PPCC chief Partap Singh Bajwa, whose wife was a claimant for the same ticket.
Bajwa has been Gurdaspur MP from 2009 to 2014 while his wife Charanjit Kaur Bajwa is a former MLA from his hometown of Qadian, a constituency now represented by his brother Fateh Jung Singh Bajwa.
Jakhar would file his papers on the last day of filing the nominations on September 22. The Congress camp is now keenly watching the choice of BJP, which yet to announce their candidate. The seat had fell vacant with the death of its sitting BJP MP actor Vinod Khanna.
Amarinder’s trusted lieutenant and his political secretary Capt Sandeep Singh Sandhu has been assigned to camp and manage Jakhar’s election office in Gurdaspur. He resigned from the post of Political Secretary on Wednesday. Capt Sandhu managed back-end operations of Congress campaign ahead of 2012 Assembly elections and also 2014 Lok Sabha election of Amarinder in Amritsar, when Amarinder defeated BJP stalwart Arun Jaitley with an impressive margin of over one lakh votes. Jakhar would reach Gurdaspur on Thursday.
Jakhar, who had already got support from most of MLAs in Gurdaspur, personally called them up after his name was formally announced by AICC general secretary Janardan Dwivedi. Sources said while the formal announcement was made on Wednesday, AICC president Sonia Gandhi had called up Jakhar late last night to inform him he was her choice for the bypoll. Jakhar had met Sonia on Tuesday. Bajwa and his wife too had met the party president after Jakhar. Sources said Sonia was convinced by Amarinder that Jakhar was the best choice for Gurdaspur.
Jakhar said he would take everyone along and ensure victory for the party. “I am grateful to the high command for their confidence in me. With so many good and deserving contenders for the ticket, it was certainly a hard decision. I will try my best to come up to their expectations.”
He said the election results would be a referendum on BJP’s three year-misrule. Gurdaspur battleground is not only a challenge for the Congress but also Jakhar personally. Congress is desperately looking at winning the election, first after it formed the government in the state.
