Punjab CM Mann’s confidant Gurmail Singh is AAP nominee
He joined the AAP in 2013, is also the sarpanch of Gharachon village besides the president of party’s Sangrur district unit
SANGRUR: The Aam Aadmi Party on Friday declared its district unit chief Gurmail Singh, 38, as its candidate for the Sangrur Lok Sabha byelection to be held on June 23.
Gurmail Singh, a confidant of chief minister Bhagwant Mann, joined the AAP in 2013 and is also the sarpanch of Gharachon village. In the absence of Mann in the district, Gurmail is the one who is running the show from the CM’s residence along with Manpreet Kaur, the sister of Bhagwant Mann.
While speaking to the HT, he said: “My aim is to carry forward Bhagwant Mann’s mission, and I will leave no stone unturned for this. Besides, I will raise every issue of Punjab in the Parliament, just like Mann did.”
The Sangrur seat fell vacant after Mann quit the Parliament following his win from the Dhuri constituency in the state assembly elections and took charge as the CM after leading the AAP to an unprecedented victory in the February assembly elections by winning 92 of the 117 seats.
Teacher, sarpanch and district unit chief
A postgraduate in math, who has also completed MBA, Gurmail was a teacher and has worked at various schools besides giving private tuitions till 2018.
He became the circle president of Bhawanigarh block in 2015 and was later elected as the Gharachon sarpanch in 2018. The party elevated him as the Sangrur district unit chief in 2021.
Party sources said that Gurmail had been at loggerheads with Congress leader and former state education minister Vijay Inder Singla and had been suspended twice as the panchayat head during the Congress rule in Punjab.
Until a week ago, he was among the local leaders advocating the ticket for the CM’s sister. Terming it the “sentiment” of party workers, he had said that they wanted Manpreet Kaur to represent Sangrur in the Parliament.
SAD, Cong, BJP yet to name candidate
The Sangrur byelection is a battle of prestige for the ruling AAP. Mann has won the seat twice, with a margin of over 1 lakh votes on both occasions in 2014 and 2019. The party also won all nine assembly segments – spread across three districts of Sangrur, Barnala and Malerkotla – under this parliamentary seat in the recent state polls.
The AAP is the only mainstream party that has announced its candidate, while the Congress, Shiromani Akali Dal and Bharatiya Janata Party are yet to decide their nominees. Simranjit Singh Mann, president of Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar), has also announced his candidature. The last date for filing nominations is June 6. The state election commission has received only one nomination, and that too from an independent candidate.