Doctors going all out to feel pulse of voters

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, January 13

Even as a large number of bureaucrats and Army officers are in the fray for the elections, it is perhaps the first time that at least six doctors are also trying their luck in the poll arena.

While Education Minister Dr Daljit Singh Cheema is re-contesting from Ropar, at least five more medicos, all from the Aam Aadmi Party, are eyeing Assembly seats from various constituencies. They are Dr Balbir Singh, an eye specialist from Patiala (urban); Dr Ravjot Singh, doctor of medicine from Sham Chaurasi; Dr Sanjiv Sharma, an ENT specialist from Jalandhar (Central); Dr Amarjit Thind, an MBBS from Shahkot; and ayurvedic doctor Ajay Gupta from Amritsar Central. 

“Despite undertaking a door-to-door campaign, I examine patients for two hours daily. I tell them to see me either before 8 am or after 9.30 pm when I am done with my campaign. I have employed an MD doctor to run my hospital. But I have been organising camps regularly. I did one about a fortnight back. Both a doctor and a politician are expected to render their services for humanity and I am luckily playing a dual role now,” he says.

On campaign in the remote Dholbaha area, Dr Ravjot says he could realise the pain of the people more closely now. “The people of this kandi area tell me that at times their kin died by the time they reached a hospital. I tell them about the rural medical facility that our party plans to start. I meet elderly people who seek my consultancy for their general ailments. I don’t carry any medicines or kit with me, but I do offer them a word of advice.”

Dr Sharma has also roped in a doctor for his clinic. He himself sees patients only with prior appointment. Dr Amarjit Thind did his MBBS from Nepal in 2009. “While doing a diploma in emergency and accident cases from Apollo Hospital, Delhi, in 2011, I witnessed the Anna movement. I was fascinated with the ideology of our party chief Arvind Kejriwal and joined him there.”

Dr Cheema, however, has a different experience to share. Having done MBBS, he practised medicine for about six years before joining politics. Medical practice and politics cannot run side by side as one is expected to respond anytime in 24 hours, he says.

“Though I kept attending patients off and on during my early political career, I had to shut my clinic permanently about 10 years ago. My wife, Dr Harvinder Kaur Cheema, is a gynaecologist and my daughter is also studying medicine.” 

Asked if he would like to get back to his medical profession after another 10 years or so, he said, “That will not be possible after such a long gap.”