Tarn Taran (Punjab), Jul 20 (PTI) Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Sunday announced Sukhwinder Kaur Randhawa as the party nominee for the upcoming bypoll to Tarn Taran assembly seat.
The bypoll was necessitated following the death of AAP Tarn Taran MLA Kashmir Singh Sohal last month.
The date for the bypoll is yet to be announced.
Randhawa was announced as the SAD candidate after she joined the Sukhbir Singh Badal-led outfit. She was part of the Azad group.
She joined the SAD along with 43 sitting sarpanches, eight municipal councillors and dozens of former sarpanches.
She said the Azad group had taken this decision in the interest of the constituency as well as the ‘Panth’ and Punjab.
Randhawa was also made the ‘halqa’ (constituency) in-charge on the occasion.
Addressing a political conference in Jhabal village here, Badal said, “Today’s congregation has set the tone for a SAD victory in the forthcoming by-election.” He also appointed party leader Gulzar Singh Ranike as the in-charge for Tarn Taran bypoll campaign.
Asserting that the SAD represented Punjab, Badal appealed to Punjabis to unite under the party’s flag to counter “outside forces who wanted to loot the state.” He alleged that these “forces” were behind the 2015 acts of sacrilege which were committed with the sole aim of “weakening” the Akali Dal.
Badal accused AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal of arriving at an “arrangement with builders to hand over 40,000 acres of fertile land to them” under his party’s land pooling policy.
“This is being done to collect money to contest elections and fill the central coffers of AAP,” he alleged.
“We will not let this government acquire even one inch of land,” he added. PTI JMS CHS VN VN
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