His number blocked, Cong MLA takes to FB to reach out to party sarpanch

Even after you blocked my number, I didn’t instruct any official not to do your works. I also accepted your choice during the block samiti and zila parishad polls. HARMINDER SINGH GILL, Patti MLA, to sarpanch in a Facebook post

TARN TARAN: Ruling Congress’ Patti MLA Harminder Singh Gill on Monday took to social media to assuage the “hurt feelings” of the party sarpanch of Sarhali Kalan village in Tarn Taran district’s Naushehra Pannuan block.

And the reason was not commonplace. Amolakjit Singh, the village head, has blocked the number of the area legislator for the last few months for not paying heed to the grievances of the local residents, hence proving “useless” for them.

“I along with other panchayat members was trying to approach the MLA for the village’s development, but he never paid any heed towards our requests,” Amolakjit told HT over phone.

Gill wrote in his Facebook post, “Dear sarpanch, you have blocked my phone number for the last six months. I am taking Facebook’s help to reach out to you. You and your family helped me during the 2017 assembly election and I am thankful for that. That is why we made you the sarpanch. Even after you blocked my number, I didn’t instruct any official not to do your works. I also accepted your choice during the block samiti and zila parishad elections.”

“People have given you a chance and you should work.

Don’t be annoyed like kids. Prepare a list of the works and I am ready to help you. If you don’t want to unblock me, give me someone else’s number so that I could talk to him. I will wait for a positive response,” he further wrote.

Amolakjit, whose paternal aunt Gurinder Kaur is Congress’s

zila parishad member, claimed he had even handed over a list of drug peddlers from his village to the police at least thrice, but no action was taken due to the MLA’S intervention.

On this, Gill said, “I fought the assembly elections on anti-drug plank. Thousands of drug peddlers have been sent to jails since I became MLA. The sarpanch didn’t hand over to me any list of peddlers.

He is like my younger brother. Instead of blocking my number, he should approach me.”

But Amolakjit was adamant, saying, “Since he became MLA, Gill never gave any development grant to our village that has a population of more than 9,000. The villagers are fed up with his attitude. The residents of our village have to pay bribes to get their works done.”