Regaining hold over Lambi another challenge for Badals

Tribune News Service

Archit Watts

Lambi (Muktsar), April 18

Not only winning the Bathinda parliamentary seat for the fourth consecutive term, but regaining hold over their home turf Lambi by getting a lead is also a challenge for the Badals in the Lok Sabha poll.

This is the first election after the demise of former CM Parkash Singh Badal, who had won five times in a row from Lambi (1997, 2002, 2007, 2012 and 2017), but lost to first-timer Gurmeet Singh Khuddian of AAP by 11,396 votes in 2022. Badal had passed away after prolonged illness on April 25 last year.

Battle for Bathinda

• Agriculture Minister Gurmeet Khuddian is the AAP candidate from Bathinda Lok Sabha seat and he and his family members and supporters are especially focusing on Lambi as they are trying to defeat another Badal this time
• Sitting MP Harsimrat Kaur, who is yet to be named SAD candidate from this Lok Sabha constituency, is regularly touring all nine Assembly segments falling in her parliamentary constituency
• The Congress has fielded ex-MLA Jeet Mohinder Singh Sidhu, the BJP has given ticket to Parampal Sidhu, daughter-in-law of SAD’s Sikander Singh Maluka, and SAD (Amritsar) candidate is gangster-turned-activist Lakha Sidhana

Now, Khuddian, Agriculture Minister, is the AAP candidate from Bathinda Lok Sabha seat. He and his family members are specially focusing on Lambi. Parkash Singh Badal, who used to look after this constituency and always managed to secure a good lead of votes for Harsimrat from Lambi, is absent this time.

From Lambi, Harsimrat had got a lead of 34,895 votes during her first election in 2009 against Raninder Singh, 34,219 votes in 2014 against Manpreet Singh Badal and 16,125 votes in 2019 against Amrinder Singh Raja Warring. Though her lead from Lambi had decreased every time, yet the senior Badal’s debacle from here in the 2022 Assembly poll was a shocker for the entire Badal family.

In such a situation, the Badal family has now trusted their old lieutenants, relatives, cluster in-charges and village-level committees to manage their election campaign in Lambi. Sitting MP Harsimrat Kaur, who is yet to be named as the SAD candidate from this constituency, is regularly touring all nine Assembly segments falling in her parliamentary constituency.

A senior SAD leader said presently party president Sukhbir Singh Badal was taking direct feedback from the party leaders in this Assembly segment from where he is expected to contest the next state election, but he has the responsibility of all other candidates as well.

Bathinda has Lambi, Bathinda Urban, Bathinda Rural, Bhucho Mandi, Talwandi Sabo, Maur, Mansa, Sardulgarh and Mansa Assembly constituencies. In the past three Lok Sabha elections, Harsimrat has never got a lead from the Mansa Assembly segment.

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