CHANDIGARH: Former Punjab Chief Minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal is believed to be angling for a Congress ticket to contest the Shakot Assembly by-election and even eyeing a Cabinet berth in case she wins.
The bypoll has been necessitated by the death last week of sitting Akali Dal MLA Ajit Singh Khohar and will have to be held within the next six months.
The senior Congress leader lost from her native Lehra Gaga Assembly seat in Sangrur district in last year’s elections. Sources said she had initially planned to fight the 2019 general elections from Sangrur but changed her mind.
The sources said her reasoning was that if Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar — he lost from Abohar last year — could win the Gurdaspur parliamentary bypoll despite the seat not being in his area, she could give Shakot, near Jalandhar, a shot.
Lobbying for the Shakot ticket has already begun. It is learnt that Bhattal wants a cabinet berth to be kept vacant for her, as CM Amarinder Singh is slated to expand his ministry after the February 24 Ludhiana municipal elections. Sources said seven ministers would be inducted in the first round of expansion and two remaining berths filled after the Shakot by-election.
The Punjab general administration department has been asked to renovate around seven ministers’ offices in the secretariat. A minister has asked his office be shifted from the seventh to the fifth floor. Sources said that if Bhattal wins and is made a minister — she was Deputy CM in the Amarinder government from 2002 to 2007 — she would be able to retain her official bungalow in Sector 2, allotted by previous SAD-BJP government.