Sarbjit Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, May 3

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), struggling to keep its act together at the national and state level, is keen on contesting the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha byelection likely to be held after the monsoon session of Parliament.This has been necessitated following the death of incumbent BJP MP Vinod Khanna recently.AAP MLA and leader of Opposition HS Phoolka said though the matter had not been discussed by the party high command, national convener Arvind Kejriwal was willing to contest.A few months ago, the AAP had taken a decision that in future it would contest all elections, including panchayats, zila parishads, municipal committees and corporations, Assembly and parliament.“There is no change in the decision on this count. I am all for contesting the byelection,” Phoolka said.Party MLA and chief whip of the party Sukhpal Singh Khaira said that too was for contesting the byelection. “There is no reason for not contesting this bypoll but a decision would be taken after consultations with all senior leaders of the party,” he said.It is going to be a keenly fought contest which will see the the BJP-SAD combine go all out to retain it but the ruling Congress, which did exceedingly well in the Assembly elections in that region, would also make all out efforts to wrest this seat from the BJP.In the Assembly polls, the AAP performed poorly in the Majha region.that includes Gurdaspur Lok Sabha constituency. But in some constituencies it polled a significant number of votes.