New Delhi, Oct 27 (IANS) Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal will reach Punjab on Thursday on a two-day trip.
According to sources, Kejriwal will visit Sangrur, Mansa and Bathinda on October 28 and 29.
He will have a dialogue with farmers on Thursday and will meet businessmen on Friday.
This is Kejriwal's second visit to the northern state due for polls in 2022. On September 29, he went to Ludhiana where he met traders and businessmen.
The announcement of this trip came just a day after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) National Convener's return from Ayodhya in Uttar Pradesh, which too will go to the polls in 2022.
After winning 20 seats in the 2017 Assembly polls, the AAP became the principal opposition party in Punjab.
The party is banking on its Delhi model of free electricity to garner votes in the Congress-ruled state.
Punjab, which got a new chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi in September, will go to the polls in February-March 2022.
The Minister while addressing the inaugural session of 'Connect Karo 2021 - Towards Equitable, Sustainable Indian Cities' event, said that there can be no doubt that India's cities "enabled by citizen-centric infrastructure and transformational technology" will be the key to achieving the nation's development objectives.
Meanwhile, India logged 27,254 new Covid cases in the last 24 hours. The country also reported 219 Covid deaths in the same time span. The country presently has nearly 3.75 lakh active cases.
At a virtual Covid-19 review meeting, the Chief Minister said vaccine effectiveness is evident from the data being analysed. Special efforts were made to reach out to the government employees, and those who continue to avoid getting vaccinated will now be asked to go on leave till they get the first dose.
DGP Dinkar Gupta said with the case load decreasing, people had started being lax about wearing masks, which the Health Department should strictly enforce with the help of the police.
Additional Chief Secretary Devendra Singh and Deputy Commissioner of Karnal Nishant Yadav are participating in the meeting. From the farmers side, BKU president Gurunam Singh Chaduni and the state leadership will present their demands.
Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Balbir Singh Rajewal told the media here after the day-long deliberations with the political parties, except the BJP, that they had told the political parties not to hold big rallies till elections in the state are announced.
