Interesting names aspiring for BJP ticket in Punjab

New Delhi, March 20: Interesting names are aspiring for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ticket in Punjab, where the saffron party is eyeing win all the seats of its quota in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls.

BJP will fight on three seats and its alliance partner Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) on 10 seats in the state. The two parties had contested on the same number of seats in the 2014 General elections. The BJP will contest from Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur Lok Sabha seats.

The BJP is eyeing to win all the three seats in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.

In 2014, the BJP had won two seats: Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur. While the Congress candidate Sunil Jakhar won the Gurdaspur bye-election that was held due to the demise of BJP MP Vinod Khanna, Vijay Sampla is the sitting BJP MP from Hoshiarpur reserved seat.

Incumbent Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh had won the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat where the BJP had fielded Arun Jaitley. After Amarinder resigned in November 2016, Congress candidate Gurjeet Singh Aujla won the bye-election.

According to the sources, the BJP not only wants to retain Hoshiarpur seat but also to snatch Amritsar and Gurdaspur seats from the Congress.

Many interesting names are doing the rounds as the contenders for the BJP tickets from these seats.

Sources say the BJP is in touch with Cricketer Harbhajan Singh, film star Sunny Deol and film actress Poonam Dhillon for the prestigious Amritsar seat.

Rajinder Mohan Singh Chinna, BJP state president Shwet Malik and former minister Anil Joshi are also contenders for BJP ticket from Amritsar.

On Tuesday, the names of these contenders were discussed in the BJP state election committee meeting.

The names which were considered for the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat include Swarna Salaria; Kavita Khanna, wife of Vinod Khanna; former state president Ashwani Sharma, former minister Master Mohan Lal, Dinesh Babu, Narendra Parmar, and Jagdish Sahni.

Apart from it, the name of Congress Rajya Sabha member Pratap Singh Bajwa was also discussed in the meeting. Bajwa, who is not happy with the Congress, has contacted the BJP for the ticket from Gurdaspur.

Interestingly, Bajwa had fought 2014 Lok Sabha election from Gurdaspur seat as a Congress candidate.

For Hoshiarpur seat, current MP Vijay Sapala, BJP legislators Som Prakash, Rajesh Bagga and Avtar Singh Sikri are the contenders.

A delegation of state BJP will soon meet the BJP President Amit Shah to give him the feedback.