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Gidderbaha bypoll battle: Candidates take digi route, bank on corner meets to woo voters
Gidderbaha will go to polling on November 20, where 1.66 lakh registered voters will exercise their franchise. The segment has 173 polling booths.
Candidates for the Gidderbaha bypoll have preferred to hold door-to-door meetings and conduct small gatherings in the constituency over large election rallies.
Apart from this, the contestants have also tapped digital tools significantly for aggressive electioneering in the predominantly rural assembly segment of Muktsar district.
Gidderbaha will go to polling on November 20, where 1.66 lakh registered voters will exercise their franchise. The segment has 173 polling booths.
Political analysts see a triangular contest with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Centre government and Punjab’s ruling dispensation of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) putting in all efforts to win the confidence of the electorate.
Congress, which managed to win the prestigious seat for three consecutive terms, is working hard to retain it again.
Besides live streaming of the events, cyber teams of the parties are focused on making reels, stories and video statements for the consumption of voters and media organisations.
BJP candidate and five-time legislator Manpreet Singh Badal is in the fray against Congress’ Amrita Warring, wife of Ludhiana MP and state Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Hardeep Singh Dimpy Dhillon.
While candidates of the BJP and the AAP are the turncoats, the Congress broke a political precedent by fielding a woman, an electoral greenhorn, from the seat that nurtured two leaders who later became the chief ministers of Punjab — late Harcharan Singh Brar of the Congress and late Parkash Singh Badal, an Akali patriarch.
Traditionally, the seat remained an Akali citadel that was breached by the Congress in 2012.
But this time the SAD is not contesting the elections.
BJP has deputed Union minister Ravneet Singh Bittu, another turncoat, to lead the campaigning, with a promise to roll out development and welfare initiatives from the central resources for the constituency.
The saffron party is banking on the political charisma of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and development works undertaken in the segment by Manpreet Singh Badal when he was a SAD MLA.
Besides holding meetings at the villages in support of Manpreet, Bittu releases small videos on social media platforms to slam the AAP and the Congress candidates.
On Sunday, veteran BJP leader and party’s former state president Ashwani Sharma also led a door-to-door campaign in the urban areas.
The ruling AAP has also put all its might behind Dimpy Dhillon. In the course of hectic electioneering, CM Bhagwant Mann has visited the constituency for about four days, including yesterday when AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal campaigned for Dhillon.
Several ministers and the party legislators have also been spotted campaigning in the semi-urban and rural areas of the constituency seeking votes for infrastructural development.
Two-time Congress MP from Faridkot Jagmeet Singh Brar, who later joined the SAD but was expelled, was also spotted campaigning in support of the AAP nominee Dhillon.
The Congress is the only party that has missed the presence of any key national figures in electioneering for the bypoll.
State Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring has single-handedly led the campaign in support of his wife.
A few party leaders including the Bholath MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira and former Faridkot MP Mohammad Sadiq have canvassed in the segment.
Former chief minister and party’s prominent Dalit face Charanjit Singh Channi took part in nine election meetings a day ahead of the last day of electioneering to consolidate support for Amrita. He appealed for Amrita’s victory as a mark of rejection of AAP’s policies and paving the way for Congress to come back into power.
