New Delhi, Oct 27 (IANS) Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will reach Punjab on Thursday on a two-day trip.
According to sources, Kejriwal will visit Sangrur, Mansa and Bathinda on October 28 and 29.
He will have a dialogue with farmers on Thursday and will meet businessmen on Friday.
This is Kejriwal's second visit to the northern state due for polls in 2022. On September 29, he went to Ludhiana where he met traders and businessmen.
The announcement of this trip came just a day after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) National Convener's return from Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, which too will go to the polls in 2022.
After winning 20 seats in the 2017 Assembly polls, the AAP became the principal opposition party in Punjab.
The party is banking on its Delhi model of free electricity to garner votes in the Congress-ruled state.
Punjab, which got a new chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi in September, will go to the polls in February-March 2022.
According to sources, Amarinder Singh will convene a meeting of leaders close to him in a few days to consider the formation of his new party, which will include all the leaders of the anti-Sidhu faction.
The arrested persons have been identified as Abdul Khalid, Shriram Chaurasia, Zishan Ahmad, Vikas Kesarwani and Krishna Kumar. Inspector (Kareli) Anupam Sharma said the arrested persons had sold SIM cards to law-breakers at high prices after creating fake IDs.
The ex-CM of Punjab recalled that Rawat himself had publicly stated after meeting him that he was satisfied by his government's track record on the 2017 poll promises.
It is learnt that Channi in his first meeting with the Prime Minister after becoming chief minister of Punjab requested that the Centre take back its decision to postpone paddy procurement by 10 days. The Centre has postponed the procurement of paddy by 10 days due to rain in Punjab and Haryana. Earlier the procurement was supposed to start from October 1 but now it will start from October 11.
Scotching speculation to the contrary, former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Thursday made it clear he was not joining the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) but had no intention of continuing in the Congress either, which he said was going downhill with senior leaders completely ignored and not given a voice.
The meeting lasted for over two hours and the issues raised by Sidhu will be put before the Cabinet on October 4, sources in the party said.After the meeting at Punjab Bhavan, where AICC observer Harish Chaudhary was also present, both Channi and Sidhu left the meeting venue without talking to the media.
