Rumblings in local BJP unit in Amritsar as Taranjit Singh Sandhu tipped to be Lok Sabha candidate
Former Indian ambassador to the US, Taranjit Singh Sandhu joins the BJP in the presence of party general secretaries Vinod Tawde and Tarun Chugh at BJP headquarters in New Delhi on Tuesday. Sandhu was the 28th Ambassador of India to the United States.
With former Indian ambassador to the United States Taranjit Singh Sandhu, who joined Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Tuesday, being tipped as the party’s likely choice for Amritsar Lok Sabha seat, the local leaders of the party have also staked a claim for the ticket.
The local BJP leaders, who were staking a claim on the party ticket, have now started targeting the former Indian foreign services officer, terming him an ‘outsider’.
Senior BJP leader Rajinder Mohan Singh Chhina has openly opposed a ticket to any ‘outsider’ without naming Sandhu. “There is a big demand of the people of Amritsar that there should be a local candidate for the elections, who should be a resident of Amritsar, and understand the problems of the city. People don’t need the outsider, who come here to contest the election and return, never to come back,” he said, without naming Sandhu.
Chhina is a former vice-president of the Punjab BJP and is making efforts to secure a ticket from Amritsar. He contested the 2017 bypoll but lost.
The ruling party is especially keen on winning back Amritsar, a seat it has not won since Navjot Singh Sidhu bagged it last in 2009. Sidhu is now in the Congress and the seat is currently represented by its member Gurjeet Singh Aujla. BJP’s Arun Jaitley and Hardeep Singh Puri, currently a Union minister, lost in the polls from there in 2014 and 2019 respectively.
For the past few weeks, Sandhu has been active in the constituency meeting people and showcasing his family’s tie-up with the city. Sandhu is the grandson of Teja Singh Samundri, a legendary Sikh leader after whom the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) headquarters building is named in the Golden Temple complex. His father Bishan Singh Samundri was a well-known educationist and founding vice-chancellor of the Guru Nanak Dev University.
Chhina said, “The people are frustrated with the outsiders. Arun Jaitley lost the elections. Then (Hardeep Singh) Puri was fielded but he did also not win.”
Others in the fray include Tamil Nadu-cadre bureaucrat, Jagmohan Singh Raju (retd), who contested the 2022 assembly elections from Amritsar East unsuccessfully and is also active these days. He is the state general secretary of the party and said he “will work for whoever is fielded by the party.”
Apart from him, former Rajya Sabha MP Shawait Malik and BJP national general secretary Tarun Chugh are also vying for the ticket, a party source said.
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