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Punjab: After 3 decades, Manpreet likely to contest Gidderbaha bypoll
Twenty-nine years after he started his electoral career from Gidderbaha as a Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader, five-time legislator and BJP leader Manpreet Badal is tipped to contest the byelection from the politically significant seat once again
Twenty-nine years after he started his electoral career from Gidderbaha as a Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader, five-time legislator and BJP leader Manpreet Badal is tipped to contest the byelection from the politically significant seat once again.
The BJP has yet to announce its candidate from Gidderbaha but Manpreet has been active for the last over a month where he is holding public gatherings and meeting his old supporters.
After the election commission announced bypoll schedule on Tuesday, the BJP leader took to his social media handles to state that “Gidderbaha is my ‘karam bhoomi’ and now his life is dedicated to the people of the halqa”.
The former finance minister also posted a video stating his past initiative of introducing RO (reverse osmosis)-based public drinking water supply.
Through the video, Manpreet tried to invoke his proximity to his uncle and Akali patriarch late Parkash Singh Badal by crediting the former CM for materialising the unique project.
Parkash Singh Badal represented Gidderbaha for five consecutive terms from 1969 to 1985 before he handed over the political baton of the segment to his nephew Manpreet in 1995.
Manpreet gained an electoral entry when the moderate Akali faces started gaining political space after decades of militancy in Punjab.
He registered his maiden victory as an SAD candidate in the 1995 byelection. In 1992, Raghubir Singh of the Congress was elected from Gidderbaha after the Akalis boycotted the assembly elections.
Two years later, the seat fell vacant after Raghubir was reportedly convicted of a crime and his conviction was upheld by the Supreme Court.
When SAD fielded Manpreet from the stronghold of the Parkash Singh Badal in 1995 byelections, he was the first person from the second generation of the Badal clan to enter electoral politics.
After tasting the victory in his elections, Manpreet again the assembly elections of 1997, 2002 and 2007 and served as the finance minister in Badal government.
But Manpreet developed strained relations with his cousin and then deputy chief minister Sukhbir Badal and left the SAD.
In October 2010, the Akali leadership suspended Manpreet for “anti-party” activities. He founded the People’s Party of Punjab (PPP) in 2011 and thereafter lost his grip in Gidderbaha the constituency he represented on four consecutive terms.
After a failed experiment of launching a political front, Manpreet merged the PPP with the Congress in 2016 and moved to Bathinda in search of new political ground.
After his exit, the once Akali bastion of Gidderbaha was breached by a young Congressman, Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, who won the polls of 2012, 2017 and 2022.
Manpreet was elected from the Bathinda Urban assembly segment as the Congress MLA in 2017 and once again became the state finance minister.
But he lost miserably in the 2022 elections and this time he joined the saffron fold in January last year. He started facing political challenges on his new political turf after he faced a vigilance probe by the AAP government.
Manpreet was booked on the complaint of his old bête noire and ex-MLA Sarup Chand Singh, who also joined the BJP to become the district president of the Bathinda unit.
After he was booked, Manpreet had stated that he would not leave Bathinda as his political ground but in the changing circumstances, the veteran politician has again got active in his old stronghold where he is seen telling the electorate that “moh” (affection) of Gidderbaha made him to come to his previous bastion after a gap of 15 years.
