Punjab / Captain Amarinder Singh to contest Punjab Assembly poll from Patiala

Punjab Assembly Elections 2022: Former Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Sunday said he will contest the Punjab Assembly Elections 2022 from Patiala, which is his family bastion. As per a report by CNN-News18, Amarinder said he won’t run away anywhere.

Notably, Amarinder has represented the constituency four times, while his wife Preneet Kaur won from the seat in 2014.

“I will contest from Patiala. Patiala is with us for 400 years and I am not going to leave it due to Sidhu,” Amrinder said on his official Facebook page.

It must be noted that Amarinder’s father Maharaja Sir Yadavinder Singh was the last Maharaja of the princely state of Patiala.

Recently, Amarinder had resigned as the Punjab chief minister due to an acrimonious power tussle with Navjot Singh Sidhu, who was later appointed as the state Congress president.

Amarinder had recently also floated his own political party, Punjab Lok Congress, and vowed to contest all 117 assembly seats in the state. He had also stated earlier that he is open to forming an alliance with the BJP for the 2022 Punjab assembly elections.

In April this year, Amarinder had challenged Sidhu to contest against him from Patiala and said the latter would be defeated just like BJP’s General (retd) JJ Singh, who contested the 2017 election against Singh.

Last week, Amarinder Singh trashed the claims of a state minister regarding his likely meeting with the Gandhis and returning to the Congress, saying there is no question of looking back. He said one of the ministers in the Punjab government has claimed that he will be meeting Congress president Sonia Gandhi and former Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and return to the party.

“These are malicious and mischievous assumptions apparently made with an ulterior motive,” Singh said in a statement. He reiterated that there is no question of his looking back ever.

The former chief minister said he is shaping up his party and giving finishing touches to the organisational set-up. “We are waiting for the registration of our party, Punjab Lok Congress, by the Election Commission of India and the allotment of the party symbol,” he added.