Punjab polls: In Mansa’s Sardulgarh, gen next of 2 political heavyweight families set for a close contest
The Mofar and Bhunder families are main traditional contestants from Punjab’s Sardulgarh, a rural segment, as they have been taking turns to win the seat since 1997
The generation next of two political heavyweight families — Mofars and Bhunders — is set for a close electoral fight in Mansa district’s Sardulgarh assembly constituency this time.
Bikram Singh Mofar (46), son of three-time MLA Ajit Inder Singh Mofar and is contesting his first assembly election as Congress candidate, is in the fray against incumbent Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) MLA Dilraj Singh Bhunder (53), an engineering graduate.
Both filed their nomination papers on Friday.
Dilraj’s father Balwinder Singh Bhunder, a Rajya Sabha memberhas won from Sardulgarh seat five times. Bikram, a graduate in humanities, was elected chairperson of the Mansa zila parishad in September 2018.
The two political families are the main traditional contestants from the rural seat as they have been taking turns to win the seat since 1997. Balwinder handed over the political baton to his son in the 2012 elections but he lost. In 2017, Dilraj defeated Ajit Inder with a margin of 8,857 votes.
In fact, the Congress leadership was in a quandary for preferring Bikram, a novice, over his father, it is learnt. He is married to the sister of the Congress MP from Ludhiana Ravneet Bittu and lobbied hard to get a ticket from his home turf.
Even as Mansa is considered a hotbed of trade unions, the Left parties have no significant electoral presence in the Sardulgarh area.
In the last elections, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) nominee was polled over 38,000 votes. This time also, the party has a high hope and fielded Gurpreet Singh Banwali (43), a former Youth Akali leader, from the seat.
The Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) has for the first time fielded Jagjit Singh Milkha, a greenhorn.
Since the bifurcation of Punjab in 1966, SAD won six times and Congress registered its victory thrice.
Criminal antecedents
According to the nomination papers, Bikram and Banawali have criminal cases against them but have not been convicted in any.
The Congress candidate was booked twice in 2015 by the Bathinda police for allegedly obstructing a public servant from discharging duty and loss to public property. Cases are pending as the police have not presented challans in the court.
Banawali was booked by Mansa police in July last year for alleged violation of the Disaster Management Act. In this case too, the police did not present challan in court.
