Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Punjab chief ministerial candidate and Member of Parliament (MP) Bhagwant Mann on Thursday said AAP is the party of common people, and has given a political platform to the people with common backgrounds who are contesting against political veterans of other parties.

Addressing a Press conference, Mann said while contesting for the first time in Delhi, AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal defeated Congress veteran and then Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, similarly to teach a lesson to Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal leaders in the state, the people of Punjab should make common leaders of Aam Aadmi Party victorious.

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He said AAP is a party of the common people. “AAP has given common people the opportunity to join politics. Our leaders and MLAs come from common and simple backgrounds. That’s why we understand the sufferings of the common people very well. Aam Aadmi Party gives political confidence and a platform to the common people,” Mann said.

“In 2013 when Arvind Kejriwal was contesting against former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, she had asked the media, who is Kejriwal? Then, Kejriwal defeated her with the margin of 25,000 votes. In 2014, for Sangrur seat, Rajya Sabha member Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa and then Lok Sabha MP Vijay Inder Singla were in the fray against me. We did not have strong front or money like them. But the people of Sangrur elected me as their MP and that too with the margin of more than two lakh votes,” he added.

Mann said that in these elections too AAP candidates are from ordinary families, while big names of Congress and Akali are in the fray against them. Giving an example, he said that in Sangrur, against Congress government minister Vijay Inder Singla and Arvind Khanna, AAP’s female candidate Narinder Kaur Bharaj is contesting.

“She does her household chores as well as the election campaign. Similarly, Jagtar Singh, the young leader from a common household, is the AAP candidate against the Liquor King in Samrala. In Batala, Sherry Kalsi, a young man from a very modest house, is fighting elections against Ashwini Sekhri,” Mann said they hope this time the people of Punjab will teach a lesson to these big names of Congress, SAD and BJP by electing the ordinary candidates of Aam Aadmi Party.

Mann said Congress can never look beyond nepotism and favouritism, that’s why most of their candidates are family members or relatives of senior Congress leaders. Reacting to Bikram Singh Majithia’s decision to contest against Navjot Singh Sidhu in Amritsar, Mann said that the people of Amritsar have a chance to show an exit to both of these loquacious leaders and they can kill two birds with one stone and elect Jeevan Jyot Kaur as their MLA.