Manish Tiwari Missing In Congress Campaigner List For Punjab

Congress MP Manish Tiwari in a sarcastic statement said he would ‘have been surprised’ if he would have found his name in the list of candidacies towards forthcoming Punjab elections from the Congress Party.

He is senior in the Group-23 leaders of the Congress who had asked for organizational elections in the party last year.

Obviously, he has not featured in the top list of candidates for this reason, is what many political analysts believe. Tiwari is a prominent and well-known face of the party. But as outspoken as he is, the top brass obviously wouldn’t have it any other way.

Taking a dig at the process Congress uses to pre-select CMs, he said, this isn’t the party’s job but the MLAs that are selected in that state. He emphasized that he was not dropped because of his religion, and said, “as far as Hindu-Sikh is concerned, it has never been an issue in Punjab. Had it ever been an issue, I would’ve not been MP from Sri Anandpur Sahib.”

Having released the list of star campaigners for the upcoming Punjab Assembly elections recently, Congress conveniently removed the obvious names of prominent G-23 leaders like Ghulam Nabi Azad and Manish Tewari. Mr. Azad apparently weren’t in good books due to his selection for a civilian award given to him by the sitting party in command and opposition.

Also, barring Ambika Soni and Pratap Singh Bajwa from Punjab, many party MPs have not got a place in it. Whereas, the name of former Speaker of Lok Sabha Meira Kumar is included in lieu of the Dalit vote bank. At the same time, the name of Delhi Mahila Congress President Amrita Dhawan is also surprising. An obvious question on everyone’s mind is- why was Manish Tewari, a Hindu face who has won from a seat like Anandpur Sahib, been sidelined? It’s worth noting that there are around 40 per cent Hindus in the state.