The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on March 14 declared its first list of eight candidates in Punjab for the 2024 Lok Sabha election, fielding five Cabinet Ministers.
The Cabinet Ministers are Dr. Balbir Singh from Patiala, Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer from Sangrur, Kuldeep Dhaliwal from Amritsar, Gurmeet Singh Khundian from Bathinda, and Laljit Singh Bhullar from Khadoor Sahib.
Sitting MP Sushil Rinku will contest again from the Jalandhar constituency. The party has fielded Karamjeet Anmol from Faridkot and former MLA Gurpreet Singh, who recently joined AAP from Congress, as its candidates from Fatehgarh Sahib.
In a statement, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said that the party will win all the 13 seats in the State.
AAP is in power in Punjab and the seeking votes on its performance and policies in the coming election would be a critical test to ascertain the government’s popularity halfway through its tenure.
The party will go against Congress, and ally in the INDIA bloc with whom it had recently contested the Mayoral election against the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) in Chandigarh. The party is also expected to face strong challenge from the Shiromani Akali Dal.
The AAP made its mark in Punjab with a thumping majority in the 2022 Assembly polls, but within months it faced a major setback as the party lost the parliamentary by-election to the Sangrur constituency, which was considered the party’s bastion. However, the AAP’s win in the Jalandhar parliamentary by-election in 2023 came as a consolation for the party.
