Punjab former speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal quits Shiromani Akali Dal
Chandigarh: A day after his son, Inder Iqbal Singh Atwal, 50, filed his nomination papers as the Bharatiya Janata Party candidate for the Jalandhar Lok Sabha byelection, Charanjit Singh Atwal, 86, who is a former speaker of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha, resigned from the primary membership of the Shiromani Akali Dal. Charanjit Atwal was the deputy speaker of the Lok Sabha from 2004-09 and speaker of the Punjab assembly twice. He unsuccessfully contested the 2019 Lok Sabha elections from the Jalandhar constituency against Santokh Singh Chaudhary of the Congress. He polled 3,66,221 votes and lost to Chaudhary by 19,491 votes.
A veteran Akali leader, Charanjit Atwal was once a close aide of former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal. Meanwhile, the Shiromani Akali Dal (Sanyukt) has also decided to back Inder Iqbal Singh Atwal in the Jalandhar Lok Sabha byelection to be held on May 10. The byelection was necessitated after Chaudhary, the sitting MP, died of a heart attack during Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra on January 14.