Chandigarh: Punjab’s Shiromani Akali Dal on Monday released the names of five candidates for upcoming Lok Sabha Polls. The party has fielded sitting MP Prem Singh Chandumajra from Anandpur Sahib.
Chandumajra had defeated former Union Minister Ambika Soni in 2014. The seat was carved out after delimitation in 2008 and was won by the Congress in 2009.
Retired IAS officer Darbara Singh Guru has been nominated from Fatehgarh Sahib, a reserved seat represented by suspended AAP leader Harinder Singh Khalsa, who recently joined the BJP.
Guru was also the principal secretary of former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal from 2007 to 2011.
Guru had resigned from service in 2011 to join the SAD and had unsuccessfully contested assembly elections in 2012 and 2017.
The SAD stood a distant third in Fatehgarh Sahib in 2014 LS polls.
From the Patiala Lok Sabha constituency, the SAD is fielding Surjit Singh Rakhra, a former minister in the previous Parkash Singh Badal government.
The seat is currently held by AAP’s rebel MP Dr Dharamvir Gandhi who had defeated former union minister Preneet Kaur. Gandhi is the Punjab Democratic Alliance (PDA) nominee from Patiala this time.
While the names of Bibi Jagir Kaur from Khadoor Sahib and former LS deputy speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal from Jalandhar had been announced earlier, their names were formally included in the list declared today.
The Shiromani Akali Dal is contesting on 10 of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab. Its ally in the state, the BJP is contesting on the remaining three seats.
In 2014, the SAD and the BJP together won six seats in Punjab. Out of these six, two were won by the BJP.
Following the demise of Gurdaspur MP Vinod Khanna in April 2017, the Congress claimed the seat from the BJP in the ensuing by-poll, thereby increasing its tally from three to four.
The AAP has 4 MPs in Punjab.
Of the four SAD MPs who won in 2014, the party lost one to the Congress as Ferozepur MP Sher Singh Ghubaya decided to shift his alliance to the Congress.
Another SAD MP, Ranjit Singh Brahmpura from Khadoor Sahib, had a fall out with the SAD leadership last year over Akal Takht’s pardon to Dera Sacha Sauda chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh and the mishandling of the Bargari sacrilege episode by the previous Parkash Singh Badal government.
Brahmpura has since floated his own outfit- the Shiromani Akali Dal (Taksali) and was joined by former minister Sewa Singh Sekhwan and former MP Rattan Singh Ajnala.
The talks for an alliance between the SAD (Taksali) and the Punjab Democratic Alliance (PDA) recently broke-down over seat sharing issues.
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