Infighting in local SAD-BJP comes to the fore again

Sukhmeet Bhasin

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, April 16

Infighting in the local unit of the SAD-BJP has come to the fore again during a meeting of Harsimrat Kaur Badal held at Sukh Sagar Hall located near the Multipurpose Sports Stadium here on Tuesday.

In the meeting organised by the BJP before the arrival of Harsimrat, the BJP leader announced from the stage that SAD workers should go out from the hall as only the BJP would have an interaction with Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal.

Irked over this, SAD workers came out of the hotel and waited for the arrival of their leader on the road outside the hotel.

In the meanwhile, sensing the situation going out of hand, some BJP leaders, including BJP Bathinda (Urban) president Vinod Binta, were seen pacifying the disgruntled SAD workers. But some of the leaders left the place after meeting Harsimrat Badal when she arrived outside the hotel.

Talking to Bathinda Tribune, Vinod Kumar Binta said, “We had organised a meeting of BJP workers with Harsimrat Kaur Badal, but SAD workers reached the venue without any invitation. And we just told them to sit in another room so that BJP leaders could interact with Harsimrat Badal.”

A local senior SAD leader on condition of anonymity said, “We (SAD-BJP) are in alliance, it is wrong and insulting to ask SAD workers to go out just because the meeting organised by the BJP”.

It is pertinent to mention that infighting in SAD-BJP is all set to dent the chances of the SAD candidate in Lok Sabha election. Even earlier in the Assembly and Lok Sabha elections, it was witnessed that BJP votes were not went in favour of the SAD.

The major reason behind it is that during the entire tenure of the SAD-BJP combine, BJP leaders and workers were mostly sidelined or ignored. Now ahead of the election, SAD leaders have started calling them.

It has also been observed when the SAD candidate is contesting from here, BJP leaders would go to the seat for campaigning where BJP candidates are contesting the seat in the state.

Moreover, BJP leaders failed to put up an impressive show for the Harsimrat Badal meeting as it is learnt that anticipating a poor gathering, the BJP changed the venue of the meeting from Jeet Palace, which is a huge hall, to Sukh Sagar Hall at the last minute on Monday night.