The Union minister and election incharge of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Punjab, Gajinder Singh Shekhawat, on Thursday said the saffron party will contest all 117 seats in the coming Punjab Assembly polls.

Launching the Nava Punjab (new Punjab) with BJP campaign today at the state party headquarters in Chandigarh, Shekhawat said on the issue of farm laws, 11 rounds so far have been conducted with the farmers’ unions and the government took the extra step of stalling the laws for 18 months. “Our initiative to address the issue can never be doubted. Our doors are always open,” he said.

Dubbing the opposition parties Congress, Shiromani Akali Dal and Aam Aadmi Party as totally bereft of any vision to lead the state to prosperity, the BJP leader said Punjabis are disgruntled with the miserable performance of these parties and they will be routed at the hustings by the people.

He said the BJP in the last seven years has delivered justice to the Sikhs who suffered in the 1984 riots and after 35 years justice was delivered. The black list was abolished, the Kartarpur Corridor was opened after the partition by the initiative of the Prime Minister Narendra Modi, GST has been removed from langur, Harminder Sahib, Bathinda AIMS, Amritsar AIMS, Sangrur and
Ferozepur has got PGI satellite centres, two new airports, new tourism sectors and mega infrastructure projects, said Shekhawat.

“We deliver and not merely promise and the party will be contesting 117 seats in the coming Assembly elections and we will go to the people with an outlined agenda of bringing prosperity and opportunity for everyone and commit that the Mafia raj will be wiped out in the state,” he said.

Speaking on the issue of enhancement of Border Security Force jurisdiction in Punjab, Shekhawat said that national security can never be compromised and the incidents of drug smuggling and drones carrying weapons had increased manifold.

He said the former CM Captain Amarinder Singh had raised this pertinent issue with the Union home minister Amit Shah a number of times and the present Chief Minister Charanjit Channi had recently met the home minister and brought up this issue.

“Now this session which was called in the Assembly on 8 November is nothing but a strategy to digress the people from the main issues of good governance,” the BJP leader said.