Bassi Pathan: ‘Outsider’ candidates try to put on a face

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Aam Aadmi Party candidate Santokh Singh Salana, too, has faced protest from local AAP volunteers as he is from Amloh. With few days left for campaigning, the candidates are racing against time touring a constituency unfamiliar to them. Gurpreet Singh GP has ordered some 12,000 masks of his own face, costing Rs 3.5 per piece and they have been rushed to villages he is yet to visit. “We have ordered them especially from Delhi as it costs less there. There are 172 villages in my constituency and some are still left for me to visit. It is important that people should at least recognise my face. I have already taken a home on rent at Bassi Pathana and shifted here from Mohali,” said GP, 45.

So, is this an effort to shed his outsider tag, he said, “I am not an outsider. I know my constituency and people very well. However, there are some villages which I haven’t reached. We have rushed masks there just to make people recognise me.” Both SAD and AAP candidates, too, have shifted their base to Bassi Pathana to counter the “outsider” remarks.

Guru, however, said, “I am a Punjab cadre IAS officer and was posted as principal secretary of the chief minister. Thus, I am insider for the entire state. Still I have shifted to Fatehpur Arayan in my constituency. Whole of Punjab is mine.” Salana, a former Bahujan Samaj Party leader, has shifted to Uchha Pind Sanghol in Bassi Pathana for good. “I assure people that I am not going back to Amloh for at least five years,” he said. “But I am not completely an outsider like Congress and SAD candidates. I am from Amloh, which too is in Fatehgarh Sahib,” added Salana.