In Punjab, no tears over Ashwani’s exit

May 13, 2013 - Tanveer Thakur |

Age Correspondent

Chandigarh

Even as Punjab lost a Cabinet minister in Union government after Mr Ashwani Kumar resigned as law minister, there are no tears in his home state.
The Congress workers in the state are not really upset by this development. The reason for this indifference for the political predicament of Mr Kumar being that he was never leader of the people in the true sense. Moreover, he rarely participated in party functions even in his home district of Gurdaspur. Despite his rise in Delhi, Mr Kumar always remained a rootless leader in Punjab. He contested one Lok Sabha election in which his security was forfeited. Mr Kumar belongs to Majha region of Punjab which has thrown many big leaders in state politics.
However, Mr Kumar failed to win the faith of MLAs and other party leaders.
The main charge levelled against Mr Kumar by party workers and leaders alike is not that he lacked mass appeal, but rather his inability to interact and connect with them. Many times during his tour to the state, local leaders complained of lack of intimation of his programme. He just made his presence felt in the rallies of Congress president Sonia Gandhi and vice-president Rahul Gandhi, leaders complain.
The other reason for total apathy towards the political fate of Mr Kumar is that despite his proximity to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh he failed to bring any big project or scheme to the area.

Post new comment

<form action="/comment/reply/232637" accept-charset="UTF-8" method="post" id="comment-form"> <div><div class="form-item" id="edit-name-wrapper"> <label for="edit-name">Your name: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="60" name="name" id="edit-name" size="30" value="Reader" class="form-text required" /> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-mail-wrapper"> <label for="edit-mail">E-Mail Address: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <input type="text" maxlength="64" name="mail" id="edit-mail" size="30" value="" class="form-text required" /> <div class="description">The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.</div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-comment-wrapper"> <label for="edit-comment">Comment: <span class="form-required" title="This field is required.">*</span></label> <textarea cols="60" rows="15" name="comment" id="edit-comment" class="form-textarea resizable required"></textarea> </div> <fieldset class=" collapsible collapsed"><legend>Input format</legend><div class="form-item" id="edit-format-1-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-1"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-1" name="format" value="1" class="form-radio" /> Filtered HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd></li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> <div class="form-item" id="edit-format-2-wrapper"> <label class="option" for="edit-format-2"><input type="radio" id="edit-format-2" name="format" value="2" checked="checked" class="form-radio" /> Full HTML</label> <div class="description"><ul class="tips"><li>Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.</li><li>Lines and paragraphs break automatically.</li></ul></div> </div> </fieldset> <input type="hidden" name="form_build_id" id="form-ba7a22c136c89c8c5efc6bb37d7ac506" value="form-ba7a22c136c89c8c5efc6bb37d7ac506" /> <input type="hidden" name="form_id" id="edit-comment-form" value="comment_form" /> <fieldset class="captcha"><legend>CAPTCHA</legend><div class="description">This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.</div><input type="hidden" name="captcha_sid" id="edit-captcha-sid" value="87171667" /> <input type="hidden" name="captcha_response" id="edit-captcha-response" value="NLPCaptcha" /> <div class="form-item"> <div id="nlpcaptcha_ajax_api_container"><script type="text/javascript"> var NLPOptions = {key:'c4823cf77a2526b0fba265e2af75c1b5'};</script><script type="text/javascript" src="http://call.nlpcaptcha.in/js/captcha.js" ></script></div> </div> </fieldset> <span class="btn-left"><span class="btn-right"><input type="submit" name="op" id="edit-submit" value="Save" class="form-submit" /></span></span> </div></form>