Manmohan Singh to release Congress Punjab manifesto, to announce various measures

Chandigarh:Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will on Monday release the Congress poll manifesto for Punjab at the party headquarters in the national capital coupled with parallel releases at Chandigarh and district level.
Singh will release the party manifesto for Punjab in the presence of senior state leaders including Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh and Rajinder Bhattal, the chairperson of the manifesto drafting panel of Punjab Congress.
Punjab unit vice president Manpreet Badal, who was chairman of the manifesto drafting committee, will do a simultaneous release of the document in Chandigarh with senior Punjab leaders such as former CLP leader Sunil Jakhar, former minister Preneet Kaur and Lok Sabha MP Santokh Choudhry doing district level releases at Patiala, Bathinda and Jalandhar respectively.
Various measures for the welfare of farmers, dalits and other sections of society are likely to be promised in the manifesto which the party has been working on for many months now.
In addition, the grand old party is looking forward to the official joining of cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu, who is likely to contest the Punjab Assembly elections from Amritsar constituency.
Sidhu had resigned from the Bharatiya Janata Party and had quit the Rajya Sabha seat. It is believed that Sidhu’s ties with the BJP had strained in the run up to the Lok Sabha elections after the party decided to field Finance Minister Arun Jaitley from Amritsar, a constituency he held from 2004 to 2014. Sidhu had then reportedly decided not to campaign for Jaitley during the Lok Sabha elections.
Jaitley, however, lost from the ‘safe seat’ to Captain Amrinder Singh of the Congress. The result was a vindication for Sidhu who was eyeing another victory from this constituency.