Punjab bypoll: Swarn Singh Salaria named BJP candidate

New Delhi: The BJP on Thursday named businessman and its national executive member, Swarn Singh Salaria, as its candidate for the prestigious Gurdaspur parliamentary constituency in Punjab, where bypoll will be held on October 11.  The bypoll has been necessitated due to the death of BJP sitting MP actor-turned-politician Vinod Khanna. Khanna died of cancer at a hospital in Mumbai on April 27 this year.

Known as a BJP stronghold, the Gurdaspur constituency will witness a triangular contest, with ruling Congress naming its Pradesh Congress Committee chief Sunil Jakhar and main opposition in the state Aam Admi Party (AAP) fielding Major General Suresh Khajuria (Retd.) as its candidate.

Considered close to Yoga guru Baba Ramdev, Mr Salaria is a native of Chauhana village in Gurdaspur and has interests in hospitality, aviation and other sectors.

Though name of late BJP MP’s wife, Kavita Khanna, was also doing the round as the party candidate and she had been participating in the party meetings in Gurdaspur parliamentary constituency but the party leadership decided to field Mr Salaria.

Mr Salaria was one of the probable BJP candidates from Gurdaspur before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls as well but the central leadership decided to field Vinod Khanna, who went on to win the seat.

Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat has been a stronghold of the BJP and the late BJP MP won it four-times. He won from this seat for the first time in 1998 when he defeated Congress candidate and five-time MP Sukhbans Kaur Bhinder and then continued to repeat his performance in the 1999 and 2004 Lok Sabha elections. He however, lost the seat in 2009 Congress candidate Partap Singh Bajwa defeated him. But Khanna won back in 2014 by defeating Mr Bajwa with over 1.30 lakh votes.