Upkar Sandhu AAP pick for Amritsar LS byelection

Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 15

Barely 48 hours after he joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), a former aide of Akali Minister Bikram Majithia Upkar Singh Sandhu has been named AAP candidate for the Amritsar Lok Sabha bypoll.

The party was earlier reluctant to induct Sandhu after talks with him failed in September last year. He wanted to contest the Assembly polls from a seat in Amritsar.

A former district president of the Akali Dal, Sandhu has been in and out of different parties. He had resigned from his post and the Akali Dal following the sacrilege incidents in October 2015. However, within two weeks he was back in the SAD, saying party president Sukhbir Badal had convinced him that enough corrective measures were taken.

By next October, he again left the SAD and joined the Congress. Sources close to him said he was set to join AAP at that time but was not treated well in the talks so joined the Congress out of frustration. “It was a mistake to join the Congress. I was never active in the party activities. I always wanted to join AAP as it gives me hope that it can run the state better,” Sandhu said.

He said he resigned as PEDA chairman over sacrilege incidents. “Sukhbir convinced me that corrective measures were taken in the form of compensation and police probe. But he failed to bring the guilty to book.”

On charges against him, Sandhu said: “The allegation of land-grabbing was a false propaganda. I challenge anyone to prove I have amassed property via illegal means.”