Amritsar is the most prestigious contest in Punjab for the BJP, which fielded a Sikh here this time바카라”Hardeep Singh Puri, minister of state for Âhousing and urban development in the Modi government.
Rahul Gandhi confidant Sam Pitroda바카라™s 바카라śhua to hua바카라ť (whatever happened happened) remark about the 1984 anti-Sikh riots dramatically altÂered the mood in Punjab as it went to polls in the last phase of the general elections. It touched the rawest nerve in recent Sikh history, putting the CongrÂess바카라™s state unit on the defensive. And it was a shot in the arm for ShiroÂmani Akali Dal-BJP Âalliance candidates who needed it in the final lap of the race.
The change was most evidÂent in Amritsar바카라”seat of the Sikh community바카라™s holiest shrine, where the army바카라™s Operation Blue Star in June 1984 set off a chain of tragic events later that year, including the assassination of then PM Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards, which was followed by massacres of Sikhs in Delhi and other parts of India. Both BJP national president Amit Shah, who visited Amritsar in the campaign바카라™s final phase, and PM Narendra Modi, who came in the penultimate phase of the election, seized upon the Congress gaffe about the 1984 riots.
A seat held since the first general elections in 1951-52 by stalwarts of the Sikh community, as well as non-Sikhs who played a big role in national politics, Amritsar is the most prestigious contest in Punjab for the BJP, which fielded a Sikh here this time바카라”Hardeep Singh Puri, minister of state for Âhousing and urban development in the Modi government.
A major asset for Puri has been his Kannada-Maharashtrian wife, Lakshmi Puri, who brought into the campaign her Â15-year experience as Âsecond-Âin-command at UN Women (United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women) in New York, besides endearing herself to voters with her Punjabi, which she had learnt only after marrying Hardeep. Lakshmi may have won over many young village women to the BJP바카라™s side with her tales, simply told, from her UN fieldwork for women바카라™s empÂowerment in African villages.
The Amritsar campaign was also intriÂguing because the Congress바카라™s recent recÂruit Navjot Singh Sidhu refused to campaign for the sitting Congress MP from this constituency, Gurjeet Singh Aujla. Sidhu, now a Punjab minister, had first won the Amritsar seat for the BJP in 2004, then in a bypoll in 2007 and again in the 2009 general elections.