Punjab elections 2017: General JJ Singh, Akali Dal candidate at a polling booth in Patiala
Former Indian Army chief General JJ Singh, the Akali Dal's candidate pitted against Congress' Captain Amarinder Singh in Punjab's Patiala city, was among the first to vote on Saturday. Asked by NDTV, Gen Singh who is fighting his first electoral battle, insisted that he wasn't a parachute candidate.
"First and foremost, I am not a parachute candidate. I have been brought up here. I spent five years of my life here as a child. Therefore, I cannot forget those lovely years," the Akali Dal candidate said, responding to rivals who have called him an outsider to Patiala.
Over a thousand candidates are contesting for the 117 assembly seats that is witnessing a three-cornered contest between SAD-BJP, the Congress and a first-timer in the state, Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party.
General Singh also brushed aside barbs that he had lowered the dignity of the offices that he had held; he was the India's first Sikh Army chief and was appointed as Arunachal Pradesh Governor by the previous UPA government after his retirement. He formally joined the Shiromani Akali Dal in January.
"Below my dignity?" the Akali candidate wondered. "I don't know who drew this
lakshman rekha (line)," he said, calling politics an opportunity to serve the people.
"It (serving the people) is priceless. They (rivals) don't understand this (but) the people have... (that) he has come to serve," the retired army officer who had called the contest in Patiala a 'one-horse race'.
He also took pot-shots at his rival, Capt Amarinder Singh for not spend public funds on his constituency, something that, he said, was apparent to even a visitor to the city.