Zee Media Bureau
Chandigarh: In what can be termed as a significant political development, the Congress on Friday announced that former Punjab chief minister Amarinder Singh will contest against Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Arun Jaitley from Amritsar.
Amarinder`s name was included in the fifth list of candidates announced by the Congress in New Delhi Friday.
Interestingly, Amarinder yesterday had declined to contest from the Amritsar seat, saying he would not be able to do justice to its people.
Sources said that Punjab Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa, who is considered not to be on best of terms with Singh, has also told the party leadership that the former Punjab CM could be a formidable candidate to take on Jaitley.
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".
"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.
BJP had on Saturday announced the candidature of Jaitley from the seat replacing its sitting MP Navjot Singh Sidhu. Sidhu, who was offered other seats, had refused, saying he would not contest the Lok Sabha polls at all if not fielded from Amritsar.
With PTI/IANS inputs
