My father encouraged me to take the electoral plunge: AAP candidate Dev Mann

JIND: After weeks of hectic campaigning in his constituency Nabha,

AAP candidate Dev Mann

took a break on Thursday to meet up with his 80-year-old father

Lal Singh

. The father still runs a cycle repair shop in his native village of

Fatehpur Rajputa

in Sanaur. Mann is surprised to find how closely his father has been following AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal's Punjab tour in newspapers.

Mann told TOI, “The days of struggle are still not over for our family. We are six brothers and two sisters and bringing up the family made my father take up menial jobs like selling glasses in adjoining areas before he opened his shop. He has been repai ring cycles for 45 years.“

“I too remember working in the fields in the younger years before I managed to get a work permit for

Canada

and started working at a radio station there. My two brothers did their MPhil and are now working as teachers. We owe it all to our father,“ he added. When Mann's car diologist friend Dr Anmol Kapoor posted pictures of the battered hands of Mann's father on Twitter on January 1, they got 282 retweets and 321 likes. “It was a tough task for me to come back (from Canada) but he encouraged me to take the plunge,“ said Mann.

Mann recalls working in rice fields in his childhood and his father ensuring that he and his siblings work with utmost honesty. “This is something that he expects from my political career too. Whenever I get a chance to catch up with him, he asks me to give it my best,“ said Mann.

But coming from an economically weak background has its disadvantages.

“I could not complete my studies and one of my sisters still works in a thread factory. It is a big task for someone who puts punctures on bicycle tyres to make his children to become financially self-reliant,“ he said.