AAP MPs call on Kejriwal to strategize for 2017 Assembly polls

New Delhi - The four newly-elected AAP MPs from Punjab today called on party convener Arvind Kejriwal on their first visit after the announcement of Lok Sabha results. [caption id=“attachment_1532663” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  AAP member Dharamvir Gandhi celebrates his victory with his supporters. PTI[/caption] Springing a surprise, AAP candidates won the Faridkot, Fatehgarh Sahib, Patiala and Sangrur Lok Sabha seats in Punjab, defeating some heavyweights in the process. While AAP candidate Dr Dharam Vira Gandhi beat Union Minister Preneet Kaur in her bastion of Patiala, the party’s Bhagwant Mann trounced Shiromani Akali Dal’s Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa by a margin of 2,11,721 votes in Sangrur. Gandhi, a doctor-turned-politician, caused an upset against Kaur on her home turf. The Congress leader, who is known as the ‘Maharani’ of Patiala as she belongs to its erstwhile royal family, had won the seat in 2009 by a margin of 97,389 votes. Mann is a stand-up comedian who had earlier contested the Assembly elections in Punjab as a People’s Party of Punjab candidate. But he later quit PPP to join AAP. In Faridkot, AAP candidate Sadhu Singh trounced Parmjit Kaur Gulshan, a Shiromani Akali Dal candidate, by a margin of 1,72,516 votes. Harinder Singh Khalsa was the successful AAP candidate from Fatehgarh Sahib who defeated Congress’s Sadhu Singh Dharamsot by over 54,144 votes. “It was a courtesy visit as the MPs wanted to meet Kejriwal,” said AAP Political Affairs Committee member and party general secretary Pankaj Gupta. The MPs are also learnt to have discussed the future course of action and what strategy the party should adopt for Assembly elections in Punjab in 2017. Making its debut in Lok Sabha elections, AAP garnered 24.4 per cent of the total votes in Punjab and secured a lead in some 33 Assembly segments while coming second in 25 others. PTI