Sidhu to seek re-election from Amritsar East

KT NEWS SERVICE. Dated: 1/16/2022 10:40:57 AM

NEW DELHI, Jan 15: Punjab Congress President and former cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu (58) will be seeking re-election from Amritsar East while Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, also 58, is seeking re-election from Chamkaur Sahib in the Assembly elections slated on February 14.
They figure in the first list of 86 candidates announced on Saturday by AICC general secretary Mukul Wasnik. The Punjab Assembly has a total of 117 seats. There is no indication so far that Channi may contest from two seats.
Pratap Singh Bajwa, 74, who is due for retirement as a Rajya Sabha member in April, is seeking election for Qadian, which is currently represented by his wife.
A former Punjab minister, Bajwa defeated actor-turned four time MP Vinod Khanna of BJP in 2009 from the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha constituency.
Political observers in Punjab said the Congress has fielded a "very strong" team of candidates, most of them are winning candidates, making it too tough for Akali Dal and Aam Aadmi Party (AP), the two main challengers, to unseat the Congress from power.
As regards the Bharatiya Janata Party, they say it is nowhere in the race. A party needs to win 59 seats in the 117-member House to have a clear majority to form the government and the observers say it may be able to win that many seats in the very first list announced on Saturday. As regards, Capt. Amarinder Singh ousted by the Congress as the chief minister, observers give his party not even double digit of seats.
In the last Assembly elections in 2017, the Captain-led Congress had won 77 seats while AAP won 20 seats leaving behind Shiromani Akali Dal, the ruling party, to only 15 seats, with the BJP in an alliance with it as then part of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) shrinking to just 3 seats. At that time, the Akali Dal had contested 94 seats and BJP 23. While the Congress had fielded candidates for all 117 seats, AAP contested as many as 112 seats.
The Assembly elections are taking place on February 14, which will also complete the polling in Goa and Uttarakhand.

 

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