Chandigarh: Even as the sitting Congress legislator Manpreet Singh Badal is striving for his sixth win as a legislator, it is the first time that the Bathinda (urban) assembly constituency is witnessing a four-corner contest.
Bathinda, which is the largest Hindu-dominating urban seat in the south Malwa belt, had seen a contest between Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) till 2017 when the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) made it a triangular and even finished second pushing SAD to a poor third.
Manpreet, who is holding the finance portfolio for the second time, first being in 2007 in the then SAD-BJP government, has been legislator five times - 1995, 1997, 2002, 2007, and 2017.
An estranged cousin of Sukhbir Badal, a top Akali leader, Manpreet, who is the nephew of SAD supremo Parkash Singh Badal, was removed as finance minister following his difference with the government over debt waivers offer from the Centre and subsequently expelled from SAD in 2010. He joined Congress in 2016.
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The incumbent Congress MLA and finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal is trying his luck for the sixth term as the legislator and faces a challenge from AAP’s candidate Jagroop Gill and Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) Raj Garg Nambardar.
Interestingly, both of them, Gill and Nambardar, were also with Congress for a long time but left it because of differences with Manpreet Badal. Jagroop alleged he was the top local leader and was yet sidelined for the post of mayor at the behest of Manpreet. Nambardar belonged to the former chief minister Capt Amarinder Singh’s camp, who was unceremoniously removed from the chair last September. However, Nambardar who initially sought to fight on Capt Amarinder Singh’s Punjab Lok Congress (PLC) ticket, has finally opted to contest on BJP’s.
It is the first assembly election for both of them, though the SAD nominee Sarup Chand Singla, who won the seat in 2012, is contesting the elections for the fourth time in a row.
Manpreet, 60, is the most experienced among all contestants.
Bathinda which has the distinction of giving Punjab two finance ministers in Surinder Singla (2002) and Manpreet (2017) has also not elected an MLA for the second time since 1985.
Since the first assembly elections after Punjab’s bifurcation in 1966, Congress has won the seat six times and Akalis, four times.
Manpreet who had won the Gidderbaha seat (district Muktsar) four times as an SAD candidate before parting ways with the SAD after forming the People’s Party of Punjab in 2011 won from Bathinda (urban) seat in 2017.
Nambardar is an affluent transporter and is trying to garner support in the name of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The SAD candidate, Singla, on the other hand, is highlighting the development works initiated by him in 2012 and the SAD vision.
Bathinda which has a sizeable Hindu population also has also a huge number of Sirsa-based Dera Sacha Sauda followers, besides over a dozen slums and labour colonies.
Total voters: 2.29 lakh
Male: 1,19,995
Female: 1,09,521
