In Bhadaur, Punjab CM Charanjit Singh Channi connects with people over cricket & cards

BATHINDA: Punjab chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi is trying to make a direct connection with the voters in Bhadaur and to lend a personal touch to his campaign, he is telling them that a chief minister is not like a king, out only to rule, but is one from among them.
As he is new to the Bhadaur area, he is mingling among the people to shed his outsider tag.
In pics: Punjab CM Charanjit Singh Channi plays cricket and cards with Bhadaur residents
While campaigning in the constituency on Wednesday, Channi asked the people at Attar Singh Wala village to pinch him and ascertain that he was there in reality and that it was not a dream. He also pointed towards his SUVs, telling people, “You see these big cars? These have been snatched from Captain Amarinder Singh and now these will not remain in Chandigarh, but will keep on coming to your village.”
In his next stopover Aspal Khurd village, he walked into the grain market yard where a cricket tournament was going on and requested the players to let him bat one over. Soon after, he announced that for the next five years, he would give the first prize from his side in any sporting tournament held in the village.
At Bhaini Fatta village, he joined the village elders in playing cards at the chaupal. However, at Kotduna village, he had to face the ire of farmers. The activists of BKU Ekta Ugrahan held a protest for not getting enhanced compensation of cotton crop damage and jobs to the unemployed. However, Channi went ahead to meet the protesters as Congress activists raised slogans in his favour, in order to drown the slogans raised by protesters against the chief minister. “We wanted to ask him questions about crop compensation and jobs, but are getting any answers. Our village has turned into a police cantonment and he is taking along so many people, including his security personnel,” a protesting farmer said.
Before leaving, he had the same message for all — vote for Congress to make him win.
Asked about the claims of Punjab Congress president Navjot Singh Sidhu’s wife Navjot Kaur, that Rahul Gandhi had been misled and that the Sidhu family was poorer than Channi, he refused to make a comment.