Akali Dal’s Pawan Tinu joins AAP, tipped to be Jalandhar nominee

Tribune News Service

Deepkamal Kaur

Jalandhar, April 14

Coming as a major setback for the Akali Dal, its prominent Dalit leader and former Chief Parliamentary Secretary Pawan Tinu (57) on Sunday joined the Aam Aadmi Party at the residence of the Chief Minister in Chandigarh. He is likely to be fielded as the Lok Sabha candidate from the Jalandhar seat.

Tinu has twice been an MLA from Adampur in 2012 and 2017. He lost in 2022 to Congress’ Sukhwinder Kotli. He had contested from the Jalandhar parliamentary seat against Santokh Singh Chaudhary in 2014 but lost to him by about 71,000 votes.

While AAP had announced the candidature of its MP Sushil Rinku but he left the party about three weeks back to join the BJP and was announced as its candidate. The party insiders had since then been demanding that an insider be fielded rather than bringing in a parachute candidate. It was also proposed that Local Bodies Minister Balkar Singh could be fielded as the MP, but it finally zeroed in on Tinu. His candidature is expected to be announced on April 16.

Tinu had started his political career with BSP when he used to contest from Jalandhar South (now called Jalandhar West). He had even contested as its Lok Sabha candidate in 2004, bagging 1.58 lakh votes. He left the party in 2008 to join SAD.

Tinu was often known to take up issues related to the SC Post Matric Scholarship, atta-dal scheme and atrocities against the weaker section. Even recently when 21 Dalit men had died in Sangrur after taking spurious liquor, he had hit out against the AAP leadership for not taking responsibility for the deaths.

Of late, he was feeling sidelined in the party, especially since the SAD had chosen Banga MLA Dr Sukhwinder Sukhi over him in the 2023 Jalandhar Lok Sabha bypoll. Now since the SAD is fighting a solo contest, Tinu was not hopeful of any results even if fielded by the party.

Along with Tinu, Gurcharan Singh Channi, who was formerly the party’s poll strategist, Chairman of the District Planning Committee and district president (urban), also joined AAP.

After Tinu’s exit, SAD is left with few options to choose from. Among its probables are Dr Sukhi, former Phillaur MLA Baldev Khera and ex-minister Sarwan S Phillaur.

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