English
New Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Thursday fielded Jagmohan Singh Raju, an IAS officer who recently took voluntary retirement, against Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu from Amritsar East assembly seat in the upcoming Punjab polls. Jagmohan Singh Raju Raju, posted as Chief Resident Commissioner to the Tamil Nadu government, had sought voluntary retirement from the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) on January 25.
With the BJP’s announcement for the Amritsar East candidature, the poll fight for the seat will now see a three-way contest — sitting legislator and Congress state chief Navjot Singh Sidhu versus Bikram Singh Majithia, one of the most powerful Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leaders versus BJP’s Jagmohan Singh Raju, a Tamil Nadu cadre IAS officer who recently took voluntary retirement. Punjab will go to the polls on February 20 and the results will be declared on March 10.
On Wednesday, Sukhbir Singh Badal-led Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) announced that former minister Bikram Singh Majithia would take on Navjot Singh Sidhu from Amritsar (East) in addition to his candidature from the Majitha constituency.
While announcing his candidature on Wednesday, Sukhbir Badal said Bikram Singh Majithia would contest against Navjot Singh Sidhu “to dismantle his arrogance”. The Sidhu-Majithia duo has had heated exchanges on several occasions in the Assembly. And Sidhu has been training guns against Majithia over his alleged connections with drug cartels.
Booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act last month, Majithia has been trying to secure protection from arrest from the Supreme Court.
Considered a Congress stronghold, Amritsar (East), the seat that came into being after 2012 delimitation, has backed Navjot Sidhu and his namesake wife — Navjot Kaur.
In 2017, the cricketer-turned-politician not only defeated his BJP rival Rajesh Honey with a big margin of over 42,000 votes but also played a role of a game-changer for the party by winning 10 out of the 11 seats in Amritsar district, once the citadel of the SAD-BJP combine. Navjot Sidhu is also a three-time Amritsar MP from the BJP. In 2014 he “sacrificed” this seat for his ‘guru’ Arun Jaitley. Later he was adjusted in the Rajya Sabha by the BJP but not finding a bigger role in Punjab, he quit the party and resigned from Parliament.
In the 2017 Punjab Assembly elections, the Congress had won an absolute majority by winning 77 seats in the 117-member Punjab Assembly and ousted the SAD-BJP government after 10 years.
(With inputs from IANS)
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