Former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh, 82, has been missing from the BJP’s campaign in the state during the ongoing Lok Sabha elections. Amarinder was not seen even at Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally held on Thursday on his home turf Patiala, from where his wife Preneet Kaur is contesting on the BJP’s ticket. This was PM Modi’s first rally in Punjab in the current polls. A close aide of Amarinder said he had written a letter to Modi on Wednesday to tell him that he would not be able to participate in the rally as he has been unwell. His aide said it was Amarinder who had requested Modi to address a rally in Patiala in support of his wife. Amarinder was also not with Preneet when she had gone to file her nomination papers on May 13. Punjab BJP spokesman Pritpal Singh Baliawal, who is also the party in-charge of the Patiala Lok Sabha constituency, said that Amarinder has been “unwell”. “Captain Amarinder Singh was hospitalised for a health issue, when Preneet Kaur had gone to file her nomination papers. Later, he was discharged. We were waiting for him to join the campaign and then he suffered from gastroenteritis. He was on a drip and was feeling drained,” Baliawal said. “For Prime Minister’s rally, it was certain that he would be on the stage. But he felt too weak to come and speak. He wrote a letter to the PM expressing his inability to attend the rally, which was handed over to PM by Preneet Kaur on the rally stage.” The scion of the erstwhile Patiala royal family, Amarinder has been a former Congress heavyweight and two-time CM. While in the Congress, he used to be on the list of its star campaigners with a national appeal, canvassing for its candidates not only in Punjab but also other states, including the neighbouring states of Haryana and Himachal Pradesh as well as Uttar Pradesh. Currently, Amarinder is the tallest BJP leader in the state. He had merged his breakaway outfit Punjab Lok Congress with the BJP in September 2022. He had quit the Congress after the party leadership replaced him with Charanjit Singh Channi as the CM ahead of the February 2022 Punjab Assembly polls, in which the AAP swept to power. The BJP is contesting the Lok Sabha polls in Punjab this time without its former alliance partner Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) led by Sukhbir Badal. Looking to expand its footprint in the state on its own steam, the BJP is fighting from all its 13 Lok Sabha seats, which are going to vote in the seventh and final phase on June 1. In this backdrop, Amarinder’s absence from the campaign trail has caused a setback for the state BJP. There has been concern in the state BJP about Amarinder’s absence from its campaign for one of its most crucial elections. He has also been silent on social media, which has caused more worry in the party circles. After PM Modi’s meeting in Patiala, however, he thanked the constituency for its “overwhelming love” for the PM’s rally. Former Union minister Preneet, who won the Patiala seat four times as a Congress candidate, has been in a tough four-cornered contest this time against the ruling AAP, Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). She has been heckled by agitating farmers during her campaigning in the constituency. On May 4, a farmer died during such a protest while she was campaigning in Sehri village near Rajpura in the Ghanaur Assembly segment. Her campaign in-charge from Ghanaur, Harwinder Singh Harpalpur, has been booked by the police in this case under Section 304 IPC, following which he has been absconding. Preneet has since been defensive. She told The Indian Express that she “misses Captain Sahib (Amarinder)”, adding that “he is my biggest support. I hope he will be able to join my campaign”. She also said Amarinder was hospitalised several days ago and that he later suffered a bout of gastroenteritis and was on a drip. The Congress has refrained from making any comments on Amarinder’s absence from the poll scene. Channi said, “I don’t want to say anything about Captain Sahib. He has been our chief minister. He is a ‘buzurg’ (elderly). Maybe he doesn’t have energy to participate in the rally. He is now old, let him rest.” Amarinder had spearheaded the Congress’s campaign in the state in the 2017 Assembly polls, when the party returned to power by winning 77 seats out of 117, defeating the then ruling SAD-BJP coalition. He had been dubbed “kissani da raakha” (saviour of farmers). In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls too, he led the Congress’s campaign in the state, helping it to bag 8 seats of 13, with the SAD and the BJP winning two each.
