Chandigarh, March 20 (IANS) With speculation rife in Punjab's political circles that the Congress wanted to field him from the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat against senior BJP leader Arun Jaitley, former chief minister Amarinder Singh Thursday declined to contest, saying he would not be able to do justice to its people.
Expressing his inability to contest from the Amritsar seat, Amarinder Singh said in a statement here that he had made his stand against fighting the Lok Sabha elections clear to Congress president Sonia Gandhi.
He said that he had met Gandhi about three weeks ago and that she had offered him to contest from Bathinda or Amritsar. He said that he had clarified that he will not be in a position to contest since his wife Preneet Kaur, minister of state for external affairs, was contesting from Patiala seat.
He said that his presence was required across Punjab and "contesting from Amritsar would simply confine him to one single constituency".
Claiming that a number of local leaders from Amritsar were strong enough to be fielded from the seat, Amarinder said that he was already lined up to campaign for party candidates in other constituencies and tying him up in Amritsar would not be good.
"Even if I contest and am elected as an MP from Amritsar, I will not be able to do justice with people there as compared to someone who would be local. Besides being an outsider, I don't know Amritsar as much as someone from that area. I will not be able to spend required period of time there," Amarinder said.
"The people of Amritsar are already fatigued and frustrated because of an absentee MP (Navjot Singh Sidhu) and they will not like to replace one absentee MP with the other," he said, adding that he had commitments in Delhi.
SC pulls up Karnataka over prosecutor in Jayalalithaa case
New Delhi, March 26 (IANS) The Supreme Court on Thursday hauled up Karnataka for not taking any
The Nobel Peace Prizes for 2021 have been announced. This time the Nobel Committee has chosen two
Every day a new twist is being seen in the Russia-Ukraine war that started on February 24 last ye
The second wave of corona is becoming explosive in Madhya Pradesh. To prevent the epidemic here i
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar assured the Canadian side that action will be taken if the
A big decision has been taken by the state government regarding population control in Manipur. Th
Chinese hackers targeted the power grid near Ladakh a few months ago. Their motive was to steal i
Bengaluru Stampede Case: Who is Nikhil Sosale? Whom police arrested in Bengaluru stampede case
The Bengaluru police arrested Nikhil Sosale, marketing head at Diageo India for Royal Challengers
More students appearing for this year's boards
New Delhi, Feb 27 (IANS) The number of girls and boys appearing for this year's board exams for
Kerala to re-tender Vizhinjam port project
Thiruvananthapuram, Feb 24 (IANS) A high level meeting chaired by Kerala Chief Minister Oommen
