Sidhu to voters: Don’t get swayed by glamour

Gurdaspur

Cabinet minister Navjot Singh Sidhu took up the cudgels on behalf of Congress candidate Sunil Jakhar by holding an impressive rally at the Hanuman chowk, right in the heart of the city, and urged the gathering not to be swayed by “glamour and stardom” and instead caste votes in the name of developmental initiatives taken by Jakhar even since he was elected MP in a byelection in 2017.

Mimicking the PM in his usual style, the minister, whose second visit to Gurdaspur in the last one week has come as a shot in the arm for Jakhar, said Modi was as good an actor as anyone could be. “For the last five years he has deceived the public with his acting qualities. He has done nothing concrete at the ground level and the two most notable ‘achievements’ of Modi were imposition of the GST and demonetisation.”

Going by the crowd at today’s rally and the one that assembled in Pathankot for Priyanka Gandhi’s roadshow a few days ago, it seems that the Jakhar-Deol battle is going to be tough.

Towards the end of his speech, Sidhu urged the crowd to vote for Jakhar because “it was a question of his turban”. “I will feel ditched if Jakhar does not do an encore of 2017 when he won the bypoll hands down by 1.93 lakh votes. Vote for development and not for glamour.”

In a related development, Dharmendra launched a diatribe against Jakhar saying the MP “was talking a bit too much and was doing precious little at the ground level.”

Jakhar, however, refused to be drawn into the controversy. “Dharmendra was very well-known to my father Balram Jakhar. He even campaigned for my father when he contested the Sikar (Rajsthan) seat in 1984. I have not spoken even a single word against Dharmendra and will not do so in future too. Elections come and go but relationships, once forged, last forever,” he said.