Maj Gen Khajuria is AAP pick for Gurdaspur bypoll

Jalandhar, September 18
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) today named Maj Gen Suresh Khajuria (retd) as its candidate for the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha byelection.
Announcing this at a press conference here, Sukhpal Khaira, Leader of Opposition, said while other political parties were planning to field “parachute candidates” from Mumbai and Abohar, AAP had chosen a local candidate with a clean image.
“As a retired Army officer, he will raise the one rank one pension (OROP) issue prominently in Parliament,” he said.
Khajuria, who hails from Bungal village in Pathankot, has served two tenures as brigade and division commander in Punjab during his 40 years of service. The former officer said he had joined politics to serve the state which had given him a lot.
Khajuria, who had taken the online membership of the party in 2012-13, said Gurdaspur had been a neglected constituency due to the fielding of “outside” candidates repeatedly by the BJP.
When asked to comment on the major reason for the AAP debacle in the Assembly elections, party leader Bhagwant Maan said it was actually SAD president Sukhbir Badal who faced the setback.
“With only one year of our existence in the state, we rose from 0 to 22 seats, while the SAD came down from 57 to 14 seats. This is not a setback, but the beginning of a new era for us,” said the Sangrur MP.
Slamming the Congress regime, Khaira said nothing much had changed as the farmers were still committing suicide and the unemployed did not get jobs. He also slammed the BJP-led Union Government for announcing an extension of tax holiday for 10 years to hill states which would have drastic implication for the Punjab industry.
Khajuria will file his nomination papers on September 21. The Gurdaspur bypoll is scheduled for October 11 and the result will be declared on October 15.