A diplomat’s debut: In tough Amritsar seat for BJP, ex-US Ambassador treads moderate line, talks development

It was an unusual start to the day for a BJP candidate to hug his Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) rival at a mosque to extend Eid-ul-Fitr wishes.

India’s former ambassador to the United States Taranjit Singh Sandhu hugged Punjab Cabinet minister Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal at Jama Masjid near Hall Gate in the walled city of Amritsar, where both were present to celebrate Eid with the Muslim community.

Sandhu and Dhaliwal are both candidates, for the BJP and AAP, respectively, for the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat, which votes only a month-and-a-half from now, on June 1, along with the rest of the state. However, campaigning has begun in right earnest in the constituency, with Sandhu making his political debut and Dhaliwal seeking to put behind his 2019 electoral rout from the seat. Dhaliwal incidentally has his own link to the Indian diaspora in the Americas, as the Punjab government’s Minister for NRI Affairs.

The hug came just a day after Dhaliwal launched a scathing attack against Sandhu over the Y-category security provided to him by the Union government, purportedly on account of farmer protests against BJP candidates across Punjab. Sandhu too has already faced such protests.

Dhaliwal also questioned Sandhu’s ideological choices, in contrast to his family heritage.

The grandson of Teja Singh Samundari, known in Punjab for his role in the gurdwara reform movement as a Sikh leader, and in the freedom movement as a Congress leader, who just recently joined the BJP, 61-year-old Sandhu seems focused for now on avoiding a war of words. Yet another diplomat pitched into the poll fray by the BJP, he is getting to know party leaders and workers in Amritsar, and trying to cover the ground in the constituency.

He admits to having contracted a throat