Chandigarh, Feb 3 (IANS) Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is likely to announce the chief minister's face in his virtual address from Ludhiana city in Punjab on February 6, sources said on Thursday.
This will be his second visit to the state in less than a week.
In his previous visit, Rahul Gandhi had assured workers that the party will decide CM candidate well ahead of the February 20 polling.
With his assurance a power struggle is on between party state President Navjot Sidhu and Charanjit Singh Channi, the first Dalit Chief Minister of a state that is home to 32 per cent Scheduled Caste population, the country's largest, to be the chief ministerial candidate.
Currently, voters have been getting tele-calls to give their opinion as to who should nominate the Congress as its chief ministerial candidate.
In the fray for 117 seats in Punjab are three prominent parties -- the ruling Congress, the opposition Aam Aadmi Party and the Sanyukt Samaj Morcha, and two alliances -- the SAD-BSP and the BJP-Punjab Lok Congress.
Punjab will go to polls in a single phase on February 20 and the counting of votes will take place on March 10.
Veteran social worker Sindhutai Sapkal - known as the 'Mother to thousands of orphans' - passed away following a cardiac arrest, a family friend said. She was 73, and breathed her last at Galaxy Hospital where she was under treatment for almost a month.
A man was beaten to death for allegedly disrespecting 'Nishan Sahib' (the Sikh religious flag) at a gurdwara in village Nizampur in Kapurthala district on Sunday. Residents of the village claimed that the man disrespected the Nishan Sahib and tried to run away from the spot.
Talking to the media here after paying obeisance at Sri Darbar Sahib, Channi, who accompanied by Deputy CM Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, described it as the most heinous act, which has not only hurt religious sentiments but also tormented all, and should be condemned with the harshest possible words by one and all.
"When the officials examined a consignment declared as plastic hot fix with a value of Rs 5,000, they got suspicious. The said consignment was then opened. On examination, a packet containing pouches of cut and polished diamonds was found inside it. These diamonds were concealed very ingeniously in the packets of 'plastic hot fix'," said an official.
Punjab Lok Congress (PLC) chief Amarinder Singh on Friday announced his party's alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for the 2022 Assembly polls in Punjab.
In a bizarre incident, a man married his own sister at a mass marriage event to obtain money from the Mukhyamantri Samuhik Vivaah Yojana scheme, under which weddings are conducted by the social welfare department.