Newsmaker | Billionaire industrialist Kewal Singh Dhillon bets on BJP for second shot at Lok Sabha | Political Pulse News,The Indian Express

The Congress expelled the former Barnala MLA earlier this year. Now, he is the BJP’s candidate for the Sangrur bypoll.

Expelled by the Congress for alleged anti-party activities earlier this year, former Barnala MLA Kewal Singh Dhillon joined the BJP on June 4 and the following day he was announced as the Opposition party’s candidate for the candidate for Sangrur Lok Sabha bypoll. The by-election became necessary after the Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Bhagwant Mann was elected from Dhuri in the state polls and became the chief minister.

This is not Dhillon’s first shot at getting into Parliament from Sangrur. The 72-year-old leader, who was born in the village of Tallewal in Barnala, lost to Mann in the 2019 general elections by a margin But even though he lost by about 1.1 lakh votes, he put in a strong performance by polling around 3.03 lakh votes.

Dhillon, who was considered to be a confidant of former Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, is a renowned industrialist with business interests in real estate, beverages, and entertainment, and is worth Rs 132.88 crore according to the affidavits he submitted to the Election Commission. He contested the Assembly elections thrice for the Congress, winning in 2007 and 2012. Both times, the Congress was in the Opposition. He lost to the AAP’s Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer by 2,432 votes in 2017 and his hold in the party ensured his candidature against Mann two years later in the parliamentary polls.

But soon all that changed for the veteran Congressman as he found himself out in the cold. According to party insiders, he was expecting a ticket in this year’s Assembly elections but, to his surprise, the party chose former Union Minister Pawan Bansal’s son Manish Bansal. Though the Bansals are from the Tapa area in Barnala’s Bhadaur constituency, they have been in Chandigarh since 2009, when Pawan was elected to Parliament from the Capital.

Initially, Dhillon announced he would contest the polls as an Independent. But later he dropped the idea and did not help Bansal in his campaign. Three days before the February 20 elections, the veteran leader was expelled from the party. At the time, the party’s Anandpur Sahib MP Manish Tewari expressed shock at the party’s decision, saying, “When no one was prepared to invest a penny in Punjab during days of terror, he brought @PepsiCo to Punjab in 1980s. He was a Congressman when it was an invitation to assassination.”

https://indianexpress.com/article/political-pulse/kewal-singh-dhillon-bets-on-bjp-for-second-shot-at-lok-sabha-7957015/


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