THE new Tory parliamentary candidate for Southall is campaigning to keep flights to an Indian province.

Jet Airways has announced it is stopping flights to Amritsar, in the Punjab reason, where thousands of Indians who live in the borough hail from and regularly travel back to.

Now Councillor Gurcharan Singh, is urging Jet not to pull the plug on the service, which would mean people have to fly to Delhi and then face a nine hour trek.

He said: “This is a real blow thousands of families in Southall who want to be able travel as quickly as possible to the Punjab.

“Forcing people to travel by land from Dehli will add several hours to journey times, and make it far harder and less comfortable to see love ones or maintain other links with India.

“I believe we can fight back by pointing out that demand for flights to Amritsar is as strong as ever and that it is the economy of Amritsar that will really suffer.

“I am writing to the Prime Minister of India, Dr Manmohan Singh, who himself has roots in Amritsar – to point out the damage this will do to the Indian economy.”