In another setback to the Congress in Punjab ahead of the Assembly elections, Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi’s younger brother Manohar Singh said he would contest as an independent candidate from Bassi Pathana constituency. Singh was reportedly upset after the party denied him ticket and fielded its sitting legislator Gurpreet Singh in the constituency.
Channi was lobbying to get the ticket for his brother who had resigned as a senior medical officer from Kharar civil hospital in August last year. Though the Congress cites the ‘one family one ticket’ rule to deny Singh’s candidature, the development is also seen as a result of the growing differences between the chief minister and party state president Navjot Singh Sidhu.
Reports said Sidhu was not in favour of allocating party’s candidature to Channi’s brother and had held a rally in favour of Gurpreet despite Singh publicly claiming for the ticket.
Singh dubbed the party’s decision as injustice with the people of the constituency and alleged that the sitting legislator was incapable and ineffective.
“Several prominent people of Bassi Pathana area have asked me to fight as an independent and I will go by what they have said. There is no chance of going back and I will surely fight the polls,” he told news agency PTI.
Singh said he took the decision of contesting as an independent after meeting several councillors, village sarpanch and panch who asked him to fight the polls.
“People told me it was wrong to give the ticket to him (Gurpreet Singh GP). He had earlier not done anything and now he has again been foisted upon,” he said.
Voting for Punjab's 117 assembly seats will be held on February 14 and the counting of votes will take place on March 10.
The Congress released its first list of 86 candidates on Saturday.
With PTI inputs