Punjab polls: Bains brothers likely to join hands with AAP

“I hope Pargat Singh would join Congress… They are old Congress family”, he said.

But, recent incidents of infighting within the party, Sucha Singh Chhotepur’s expulsion, Sidhu’s humiliation (or volte-face depending on your viewpoint) and Kejriwal’s indiscreet utterances after the Indian army’s surgical strikes and demonetisation along the LoC have pulled the AAP own from its perch.

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) supremo Arvind Kejriwal is trying to experiment the same tricks during his party’s campaign for Punjab Assembly polls that he had so successfully played in Delhi Assembly elections. “We will try to bring him into AAP fold”.

Promising a “better future” for Punjab that goes to polls in 2017, he said contracts of mining and bus permits, which Badals obtained through “misuse of power”, would be taken back and distributed to unemployed youth, once AAP was voted to power.

Amarinder said Sidhu and his family have a Congress background, indicating his approval for the cricketer-turned-politician’s entry into his party.

In a statement issued here, the Punjab Congress president said he had been informed by industry captains from Ludhiana and other parts of the state that thousands of daily wage workers and labourers, who were not on the rolls of companies, had been asked to leave since they could not afford to pay them for their work. “At this stage, Awaaz-e-Punjab is not a party. It is a forum for good governance”, Sidhu had announced.

The Supreme Court had on November 10 held as “unconstitutional” the 2004 law passed by the Punjab assembly which was meant to deny Haryana its share in the river waters through the SYL. “This party’s (Lok Insaaf Party) mission is same as ours”, he said. Congress sources informed that the former hockey player may soon join Congress.

Notably, Sidhu and Pargat are in contact with the senior Congress leaders.

“There was no politics and self interest involved in this alliance. But you have failed to submit your resignation to the Lok Sabha speaker despite being in Delhi for quite some time during this period”, she said.

The development has altered the equations in the Punjab political scene.

Under this pact, Lok Insaaf Party will be given five seats from where they could nominate their candidates.