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18 Congress Bathinda councillors meet Manpreet Badal
Ahead of the two-day Bathinda visit of the union minister and Punjab in charge of the Bharatiya Janta Party Gajendra Shekawat next week, former finance minister Manpreet Badal has started consolidating his political position in Bathinda as 18 Congress councilors of the municipal corporation met him on Friday.
Ahead of the two-day Bathinda visit of the union minister and Punjab in charge of the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) Gajendra Shekawat next week, former finance minister Manpreet Badal has started consolidating his political position in Bathinda as 18 Congress councillors of the municipal corporation met him on Friday.
Five-time MLA Manpreet joined the saffron party on Wednesday after ending his 7-year-old association with the Congress.
State BJP vice president Dayal Das Sodhi said Shekhawat would hold a series of workers meeting in different constituencies in Bathinda district on January 24 and 25.
Party sources said that the Manpreet camp is engaged in a show of strength before Shekhawat by bringing together his aides in the Congress.
In 2022, veteran MLA Manpreet lost to a municipal councilor and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Jagroop Gill by over 63,000 candidates.
On Friday, a group of Congress councilors having allegiance with Manpreet visited his farmhouse in Muktsar’s Badal village.
Bathinda deputy mayor Master Harmander Singh and the husband of mayor Sandeep Goyal were among those present.
Councilors, who won the Congress ticket in 2021, today avoided speaking about the meeting but their photos and videos with Manpreet were circulated on social media.
Congress has 41 councilors in the 50-member house and the political camp of Manpreet hopes to retain the confidence of the majority in the house.
Soon after Manpreet shifted his loyalty to the saffron party, all eyes were set on the development of the Congress would be able to retain its majority in the Bathinda municipal corporation, the largest urban local body in the south Malwa region.
When Raman Goyal, a political novice, was elected as the first woman mayor of Bathinda, it was seen as the personal pick of then Congress MLA from Bathinda Urban Manpreet.
Concerned over the sudden development, the Congress leadership huddled a meeting of the party councilors in which about 20 were present.
The party has high stakes in Bathinda MC as it was for the first time in 53 years that Congress was able to penetrate the political fort of the Akalis.
