Gurdaspur pins hopes on its minister

GURDASPUR: The elevation of Gurdaspur MP Ashwani Kumar as minister of state for planning and parliamentary affairs has elated the residents of this border district, who are hoping that the Rajya Sabha MP would now be able to fulfil promises made to the residents during his previous tenure as MoS in the industry ministry.
”His becoming minister has again given us new hope for Gurdaspur development,” said former MLA and Ashwani supporter Ashok Sharma.58-year-old Ashwani, who has never contested any Lok
Sabha election and was nominated to Rajya Sabha thrice, is learnt to be in AICC president Sonia Gandhi’s good books “due to his grasp over Congress ideology”, said his close aides while pointing out how he has been representing Congress on various committees in Rajya Sabha.
During his stint as minister of state for industry, Ashwani Kumar had promised Pathankot residents that a food processing unit would be installed in the area. However, no major industrial house came forward to invest in the project.
His assurances on doing something for the dying Batala foundry units and promises to bring sops for small scale units also remained on paper since the Central government polices hardly favoured SSIs.
Kumar, meanwhile, takes credit for getting an express train running from Delhi to Amritsar, linking Batala, Gurdaspur and Pathankot, and for restoring an Air India flight on the Pathankot-New Delhi route.
Chaudhary Rajbir Singh, a PPCC member and a diehard supporter of Ashwani, said Congress workers were rejoicing over the appointment by distributing sweets. The supporters also expect Ashwani, who was also instrumental in getting his loyalist Ashok Sharma ticket in the last Assembly elections, to get a say in ticket allocation for the coming Assembly elections.