Congress names two more from Punjab, drops Md Sadiq from Faridkot seat

Incidentally, it was Sahoke’s birthday on Monday when the Congress declared her as a candidate from Faridkot. She turned 46. She served as a government school teacher before entering politics.

Sahoke had contested the 2017 Punjab Assembly elections on a Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) ticket from Jagraon and had finished third with a 24.72 per cent vote share. Sahoke joined the Congress in 2021. Her husband Bhupinder Singh Sahoke had contested the 2022 Punjab elections from the Nihal Singh Wala constituency on a Congress ticket and lost to AAP’s Manjit Singh Bilaspur.

Sahoke is pitted against the ruling AAP’s candidate and Punjabi actor Karamjit Anmol, BJP’s Hans Raj Hans and SAD’s Rajwinder Singh.
Yamini Gomar (49), a former private school teacher, had unsuccessfully contested from Hoshiarpur in the 2014 parliamentary elections on an AAP ticket and finished third bagging 14.37 per cent votes. BJP’s Vijay Sampla had won the seat with a vote share of 23.34 per cent, defeating his nearest rival Congress’s Mohinder Singh Kaypee who got 22.42 per cent of votes.

Gomar resigned from the AAP in December 2016 and later joined the Congress.

Gomar will be facing sitting BJP MP Anita Som Parkash, AAP’s Raj Kumar Chabbewal and SAD’s Sohan Singh Thandal.

With this list, the Congress has so far announced candidates for eight of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab — Jalandhar, Amritsar, Fatehgarh Sahib, Patiala, Bathinda, Sangrur, Hoshiarpur and Faridkot. It is yet to announce candidates for Khadoor Sahib, Gurdaspur, Anandpur Sahib, Ludhiana and Ferozepur.

Meanwhile, senior party leader Partap Singh Bajwa said, “It is only the Congress that has the potential to win all 13 seats in Punjab”.

He slammed the ruling AAP, alleging that it has “failed” miserably since assuming power in 2022. “It not only reneged from its promises but also remained unsuccessful in streamlining the economy of the state and maintaining the law-and-order situation,” alleged Bajwa, the leader of opposition in the assembly.

“AAP did not fulfil its promises made to farmers before and after the assembly elections in 2022. The people of Punjab have already become tired of AAP in just two years and now they have decided to teach it a lesson,” he claimed.