Anandpur Sahib: Soni holds sway, Tewari in contention too

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, Feb 4

A keen contest is on the anvil for the Congress ticket in Anandpur Sahib with party general secretary Ambika Soni holding sway in the constituency and former minister Manish Tewari also learnt to be in contention.

Top Congress sources told The Tribune that Soni’s word will matter when deciding the party nominee for the constituency.

At a meeting in Chandigarh last week, majority of leaders wanted Soni’s word to be weighed in the matter. Later when leaders were asked to put in their preferences by way of slips, Tewari’s name also figured.

Soni had unsuccessfully contested the 2014 Lok Sabha election from Anandpur, but she had been nursing the constituency for years.

Ahead of 2014 elections Soni was fielded from Anandpur the last minute after then sitting party Congress MP from the segment Ravneet Singh Bittu sought a change of seat to Ludhiana.

Her son Anoop is among the contenders from the seat with a section of leaders asking him to fight. Anoop hasn’t, however, applied for the ticket.

Tewari is also learnt to be looking at Anandpur as the race for nomination in Chandigarh hots up with former minister Pawan Bansal and Navjot Singh Sidhu’s wife Navjot Kaur applying for tickets along with Tewari. Other names doing the rounds for Anandpur Sahib are that of Capt Sandeep Sandhu, an aide of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, and two-time former MLA Kewal Dhillon.

Dhillon said, “We have urged the party leadership to go by the candidate Ambika Soni recommends. This is her seat.”

In another development today, AICC spokesperson Jaiveer Shergill, a political greenhorn, formally applied for the ticket from Anandpur Sahib.

He said, “I want to take Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s vision of new India forward where people from non-political families can also enter politics and seek to represent the party.”

Rahul spotted Shergill in AICC’s national talent hunt for spokespersons 2011. All of 35, Shergill was born and brought up in Jalandhar and has participated in 1,400 political debates as Congress spokesman.

Tewari and Hindu angle

Out of 13 LS seats in Punjab, four are reserved. Amritsar, Ludhiana, Patiala, Bathinda, Ferozepur normally go to Sikh candidates, while Gurdaspur, Sangrur and Anandpur Sahib are considered potential seats for the Hindus.