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Bhatia looks for sixth win from Amritsar

Congress stalwart R L Bhatia is making a bid to bag the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat for the sixth time.

A former Union minister, Bhatia is involved in an eight-cornered contest, his main rival being state BJP unit president Daya Singh Sodhi. This is the eighth time that Bhatia is contesting the seat.

Political observers consider Sodhi a lightweight, a factor that might help Bhatia make it to the Lok Sabha the third time in a row.

Another factor in Bhatia's favour is that his party has an electoral understanding with the Communist Party of India. As a result, CPI candidate Sukhchain Singh withdrew from the fray. The CPI has pockets of influence in and around Amritsar.

Sodhi is banking largely on the Akali Dal (Badal) support, particularly in the rural areas.

A section in the BJP had favoured that former corporation mayor Om Prakash Soni be admitted to the party fold and given a ticket against Bhatia.

Soni, who was expelled from the Congress in February last year for allegedly slapping Bhatia at Chandigarh, is an Independent MLA from the Amritsar West constituency.

Bhatia first entered the Lok Sabha in a by-election in 1972, following the death of his brother Durga Dass Bhatia.

He was defeated in 1977 by BJP stalwart Dr Baldev Parkash, but re-captured the seat in 1980 and retained it in 1985.

It was in 1989, during the peak of terrorism, that Bhatia lost by over 100,000 votes to Kirpal Singh (Independent) who was supported by the Akalis.

However in the 1992 poll, Bhatia recaptured the seat with an impressive margin of over 100,000 votes and went on to become minister of state for external affairs in the P V Narasimha Rao government.

Four years later, Bhatia scraped through by a narrow margin of more than 30,000 votes against Kirpal Singh, who was supported by the Akali Dal (Badal). The BJP finished a dismal third.

He is currently concentrating on the urban and semi-urban areas like Amritsar city which comprises four assembly segments, the industrial town of Batala and Qadian where there is a sizable Muslim population -- a traditional Congress votebank.

The BJP campaign got a shot in the arm, following the visit of actor and party MP Shatrughan Sinha who addressed a rally. Sodhi is still awaiting the arrival of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and senior BJP leaders like former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Lal Kishinchand Advani. He expects Badal's visit to have a positive impact on Sikh voters.

UNI

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