India News | Punjab: AAP Govt May Try to Implicate Bypoll Candidate in Fake Case, Alleges Cong
Get latest articles and stories on India at LatestLY. Congress leaders alleged on Saturday that the AAP government in Punjab may again try to implicate the party candidate for the Ludhiana West Assembly by-election, Bharat Bhushan Ashu, in a false case ahead of the polling.
Ludhiana, Apr 5 (PTI) Congress leaders alleged on Saturday that the AAP government in Punjab may again try to implicate the party candidate for the Ludhiana West Assembly by-election, Bharat Bhushan Ashu, in a false case ahead of the polling.
Senior Congress leaders, including former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi, AICC secretaries Alok Sharma and Ravindra Dalvi, former ministers Pargat Singh and Rakesh Pandey, along with Ashu, warned against any such move to implicate him.
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The Congress announced Ashu's candidature for the bypoll on Friday.
Sharma claimed that now that the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has been "rejected" by the people of Delhi, its supremo, Arvind Kejriwal, is trying to gain a back-door entry into Parliament through Punjab.
He accused the AAP of trying to use all the "dirty tricks" and claimed that it could again "implicate" Ashu in a false case.
Sharma wondered how a Rajya Sabha member, with three more years left in his tenure, was "forced" to contest the bypoll, when the Punjab Assembly has only a year and a half left to complete its term.
The AAP has named Rajya Sabha member Sanjeev Arora as its candidate for the Ludhiana West bypoll.
Channi claimed that the AAP government has not brought a single development project to Ludhiana.
"Merely whitewashing the ITI or the Civil Hospital does not mean anything," he said, adding, "This is the typical way of the AAP's politics of selling lies to people and deceiving them."
Channi said he will stay put in Ludhiana till the bypoll and expressed confidence that Ashu will win the contest with a record margin.
Expressing gratitude to the party high-command for reposing its faith in him, Ashu assured the voters that he will work hard to win their trust back.
He alleged that the AAP has only resorted to vendetta politics from the day it came to power in Punjab.
The Congress candidate said he stood vindicated after the Punjab and Haryana High Court quashed an FIR against him as it was registered for "sheer political vendetta".
Ashu was booked in connection with an alleged foodgrain-transportation scam in 2022 by the Punjab Vigilance Bureau. However, the high court quashed the FIR against him in December 2024.
Ashu alleged that the AAP has not only cheated the common people, but also late MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi's wife by denying her the bypoll ticket after promising it to his family, just because Kejriwal is eyeing a back-door entry to the Rajya Sabha after getting defeated in the Delhi election.
He expressed confidence that the people of Punjab in general and Ludhiana in particular have already seen through the "fake designs" of the AAP and they will not be cheated and misled again.
The Ludhiana West seat fell vacant following AAP MLA Gogi's death in January. The date for the bypoll is to be announced.
(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)