Up against 3 sitting MLAs, Harsimrat eyes hat-trick
BATHINDA: Union minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal, the daughterin-law of five-time former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal and wife of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) president Sukhbir Singh Badal, pulled out all stops to score a hat-trick from Bathinda Lok Sabha constituency.
The seat was one of 13 that went to polls on Sunday, in the last phase of the 17th general elections.
The SAD has an enviable electoral record of winning the seat five times out of six in past two-and-half decades.
Badal faced three sitting legislators — Amrinder Singh Raja Warring of the ruling Congress, rebel Aam Aadmi Party leader Sukhpal Singh Khaira and Baljinder Kaur, the official AAP nominee of the party.
A two-time MLA from Gidderbaha, Warring was fielded after Manpreet Singh Badal, who is the finance minister in the Amarinder Singh government,
and Navjot Kaur, wife of star campaigner and tourism minister Navjot Singh Sidhu, refused to contest.
Khaira had set up Punjab Ekta Party (PEP) after leading a revolt against AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal, earlier this year in January.
Though it fared poorly in the 2014 parliamentary polls, the AAP had won five of nine assembly seats that fall in Bathinda segment, in the state polls held two years ago.
Internal squabbles and splits have left the party in disarray.
The desecration of the Guru Granth Sahib and the subsequent police firing on Sikh protesters during the Akali government in 2015 dominated the poll narrative in many parts of the constituency.
Both Warring and Khaira rallied against the Badals to tap into anger among the Sikhs on sacrilege incidents. Harsimrat Badal, however, dismissed all accusations as false propaganda by Congress, and hit back at their alleged protection of those accused of the 1984 anti-Sikh riots and Operation Blue Star.
Badal counted on the development work done by the previous SAD governments, including setting up an AIIMS, building better roads and drinking water facilities.
Warring, in turn, blamed the empty coffers left by the SAD-BJP government for delay in implementation of poll promises.