 "LS polls: AAP names 4 Punjab candidates, fields Pawan Kumar from Jalandhar")
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Tuesday released a list of four candidates from Punjab for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections 2024. AAP fielded sitting MLA Ashok Parashar from the Ludhiana seat, along with three other candidates.
Aam Aadmi Party leader Jagdeep Singh Kaka Brar is set to contest from Ferozpur. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, Sukhbir Singh Badal of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) won with 633,427 votes in the Ferozepur Lok Sabha constituency. The runner-up was Sher Singh Ghubaya of Congress. The margin of victory was 198,850 votes.
Meanwhile, the ruling party in Punjab has fielded Amansher Singh (Shery Kalsi) from Gurdaspur, who will take on the Bharatiya Janata Party's Dinesh Singh' Babbu'. The BJP candidate was given a ticket after the saffron party dropped the incumbent Bollywood actor Sunny Deol from the Gurdaspur seat.
The AAP has fielded Pawan Kumar Tinu from Jalandhar, who will vie against the former AAP MP-turned BJP leader Sushil Kumar Rinku. Rinku had won the Lok Sabha by-poll from the same seat last year and joined the ranks of the saffron party last month. Before joining the AAP and, subsequently, the BJP, Rinku was a Congress MLA. However, he was defeated in the 2022 Assembly elections by AAP candidate Sheetal Angural.
Another AAP leader, Ashok Parashar Pappi, will try his luck from Ludhiana and will contest against BJP's leader and current MP Ravneet Singh Bittu, grandson of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh. Bittu recently defected from Congress to the BJP on March 26.
All four candidates of the Delhi-based party are current members of Punjab's Legislative Assembly.
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One of the four, Pawan Kumar Tinu, switched over to the party from the Shiromani Akali Dal and is being fielded from the Jalandhar seat, which is an SC quota constituency.
In its earlier list for Punjab, the AAP list featured big guns, including cabinet ministers and Punjabi actor Karamjeet Anmol. The actor-turned-politician will contest the polls from the Faridkot seat.
Ministers Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal from Amritsar, Laljit Singh Bhullar from Khadoor Sahib, Gurmeet Singh Khudian from Bathinda, Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer from Sangrur, and Balbir Singh from Patiala have been fielded.