Incumbent MP & Union minister of State Som Prakash’s wife Anita from Hoshiarpur (SC), Ex-IAS Parampal Kaur from Bathinda, and Manjit Singh Manna Mianwind from Khadoor Sahib
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has announced the names of three more candidates to contest the Lok Sabha elections 2024 from Punjab, which goes to the polls in the last phase on June 1.
With this the party, which is contesting the parliamentary elections in the border state for the first time outside of the alliance with its senior Punjab partner Shiromani Akali Dal, has named candidates to nine of the 13 seats.
Expectedly, Parampal Kaur Sidhu, daughter-in-law of senior Akali leader and former Punjab cabinet Minister Sikandar Singh Maluka, who recently resigned from the IAS and joined the BJP along with her husband Gurpreet Singh, Chairman of Bathinda zila parishad, has been fielded by the party from Bathinda.
From Hoshiarpur (SC) seat, which the party has traditionally been contesting as part of the alliance, and from where it won the last two elections in 2014 and 2019, the BJP has replaced its incumbent MP and Union minister of state Som Prakash with his wife Anita Som Prakash apparently on considerations of advancing age and health issues. Som Prakash crossed 75 years of age recently.
The party has reposed faith in the candidature of BJP district president (Amritsar Rural) Manjit Singh Manna Mianwind from Khadoor Sabha Lok Sabha constituency. A two-time Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) MLA from Khadoor Sahib assembly constituency (2002, 2007), Manjit Singh later moved to the newly constituted Baba Bakala (SC) assembly constituency.
He joined the BJP prior to the 2022 assembly elections in the state after he was denied the SAD ticket from Baba Bakala. However, he lost his security deposit when he joined the fray as a BJP candidate from the same constituency, as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) wave swept the state.
The Baba Bakala seat was also won by AAP candidate Dalbir Singh Tong by a big margin. SAD candidate Baljit Singh Jalal Ushman finished a distant third behind Santokh Singh Bhalaipur of the Congress.
