QUASHING hopes of supporters of former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi, the Congress on Monday announced the name of Karamjit Kaur Chaudhary, 69, as its candidate for the Jalandhar Lok Sabha by-election, which is due soon. Kaur is the wife of Chaudhary Santokh Singh, whose death necessitated the bypoll. The Jalandhar MP, who was 76, had suffered a cardiac arrest while participating in the Jalandhar leg of Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra in January, and died. The Election Commission is yet to announce the by-election, and the Congress is the first party to announce its candidate. In the 2022 Assembly elections, Channi, who had replaced stalwart Amarinder Singh as the Congress Chief Minister, had been defeated in both the Assembly seats he contested from - thus belying the hype created about Punjab's first Dalit CM. Channi was reportedly eyeing the Jalandhar seat as a means of rehabilitation, and for the past couple of months, had been making frequent rounds of the constituency, including significant religious places. However, sources said, the Congress decided not to take a chance. It hopes to capitalise on the “sympathy factor” over Singh's demise. The party is desperate for a win as a crucial morale booster ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. For the ruling Aam Aadmi Party too, the stakes are high as it earlier suffered an unexpected defeat in the by-election to the Sangrur Lok Sabha constituency, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann’s home turf, in June last year, barely three months after it swept the state Assembly polls. In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, the Congress had won 8 of the 13 seats in Punjab, the Akali Dal 2, the BJP 2 and AAP 1. While Singh's death reduced the Congress to 7 seats, AAP's loss in Sangrur to Simranjit Singh Mann of SAD (A) has left it without a Lok Sabha seat in Punjab. The Congress has announced over two dozen names as in-charges and co-in charges for the nine Assembly segments falling under the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat for the coming bypoll. The Congress had won five out of these nine in the 2022 Assembly elections. A long-time professor and former principal of Government Arts and Sports College, Jalandhar, Kaur retired as Director of Public Instructions (Colleges), Government of Punjab, in April 2011. She has already started campaigning, accompanied by son Vikramjit Singh Chaudhary, the MLA from Phillaur. In the 2017 Punjab Assembly elections, the Congress had first given her a ticket from Phillaur, but later nominated her son Vikramjit, a former Punjab Youth Congress president. He lost in 2017 but won last year from Phillaur. The Chaudharys have a long political legacy, with Singh the son of former Punjab agriculture minister Master Gurbanta Singh and the brother of former local government minister Chaudhary Jagjit Singh. Singh had won the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat both in 2014 and 2019, holding off the Modi wave. The BJP was aligned at the time with the Akali Dal in the state. Vikramjit's entry marked the 16th representation for the family in the Punjab Assembly – in other words, a family member has been an MLA in every Assembly the state has seen. Vikramjit's grandfather Master Gurbanta Singh was a seven-time MLA and won for the last time, in 1972, unopposed. Chaudhary Jagjit Singh, his uncle, is a five-time MLA. Jagjit’s son Chaudhary Surinder Singh was also elected to the Assembly once.
