Former Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has announced that he will contest the upcoming state assembly elections from the Patiala assembly constituency. "I will contest from Patiala. Patiala is with us for 400 years and I am not going to leave it due to Sidhu," Captain Singh said on his official Facebook page. Patiala has been a stronghold of Mr Singh's family, he has won the seat four times and his wife Preneet Kaur represented it for three years from 2014 to 2017. The former Chief Minister's father Maharaja Sir Yadavinder Singh was the last Maharaja of the princely state of Patiala.
Mr Singh had announced his own political party called Punjab Lok Congress earlier this month and said it'll contest all 117 assembly seats in the state.
Mr Singh had in April this year challenged state Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu to contest against him from the seat during the ongoing feud between the two that snowballed into a full-fledged crisis in the state unit of the party and led to the unceremonious exit of Mr Singh as state Chief Minister.
Mr Singh had reportedly told Mr Sidhu that he would be defeated as comprehensively as the BJP's General (retd) JJ Singh, who contested the 2017 election but finished with over 60,000 votes behind Mr Singh and with just 11.1 per cent of the votes and forfeited his security deposit as a result.
Mr Sidhu had hit back with a Tweet saying "Efforts to derail Punjab's conscience will fail... My soul is Punjab and Punjab's soul is Guru Granth Sahibji... Our fight is for justice and punishing the guilty... an Assembly seat is not worth (discussing) in the same breath!!".
Navjot Singh Sidhu Reveals Why He Left Kapil Sharma's Show, Wishes For The Original Gang To "Get Together" The Great Indian Kapil Show: Navjot Singh Sidhu Comes Back 5 Years After Exit, Check Out Archana Puran Singh's Reaction "Confidence 100, Skill 0": Navjot Singh Sidhu Trolls India Star Ahead Of T20 World Cup Final. Watch "Thousand Times Better...": Delhi Lt Governor's Surprise For AAP's Atishi "World War 3 Has Begun": Ukraine Ex-Military Commander Amid Russia Conflict 2 Children Strangled To Death In Bengaluru, Parents Blame Each Other: Cops N Sitharaman Urges India To Defy Western Diktats To Build "Brand Bharat" Britain's Queen Camilla To Miss Annual Event Due To Symptoms Of Illness Zomato To Join BSE Sensex, Replacing JSW Steel From December 23 Track Latest News Live on NDTV.com and get news updates from India and around the world.