Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president Partap Singh Bajwa today filed his nomination papers from the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha constituency.
Accompanied by his wife and party MLA Charanjit Kaur and other leaders, the sitting Congress MP filed his papers from Gurdaspur. He is pitted against actor-turned-politician Vinod Khanna, who represented the constituency for three consecutive terms before losing to Bajwa in 2009 polls.
Earlier, Bajwa accompanied by his wife, who is also his covering candidate, and brother Fateh Jang Singh Bajwa paid obeisance at the Golden Temple in Amritsar.
After filing his nomination, the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president called upon the people to wipe out the "autocratic, anti-people and dictatorial" SAD-BJP combine from Punjab forever by taking the first step in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections.
He said this is going to be a decisive battle to shape the destiny of the people by resolutely confronting the communal forces which could pose a grave threat to the secular fabric of the country.
Bajwa said the dangerous and dictatorial tendencies were already discernible in the election campaign with BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi projecting only himself and not the party.
Training his gun on his rival candidate Khanna, Bajwa said the people should ask this man from Mumbai as to where he was during the past five years after he lost the 2009 polls.
"The people have a right to know where he was when gastroenteritis spread in Batala taking scores of lives. They have the right to know why did he not ever intervene to stop the daylight loot of natural resources in Pathankot. Sand mafias have been resorting to illegal mining in Gurdaspur and the amount involved is about Rs 3000 crore," he said.
He questioned why despite having represented this seat thrice, Khanna ditched Ranjit Sagar Dam employees, about 4,000 of whom were issued marching orders.
He said he took up ex-servicemen's demand for "one rank, one pension" scheme with the Centre.
Bajwa said he also pushed for the Rs 1,000-crore Pathankot-Amritsar highway upgradation project.
