From political wilderness to crowning glory in polls

Nikhila Pant Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, March 11

For Manpreet Singh Badal, who won from the Bathinda (Urban) constituency, victory has come after a long wait of 10 years.

He won from the Bathinda (Urban) seat, defeating AAP candidate Deepak Bansal by 18,480 votes.

While Manpreet polled 63,942 votes, Bansal polled 45,462 votes. Sitting SAD MLA from the constituency, Sarup Chand Singla, managed to secure the third position with 37,177 votes.

Flashing the victory sign, Manpreet said after coming out victorious in the elections, another battle awaited the party.

“Although Congress has registered a thumping victory, there is another battle to be fought. It is to rebuild the state,” he said.

He added that anther task at hand was to constitute an implementation committee, which would probably be headed by Captain Amarinder Singh to ensure that all promises made by the party were fulfilled.

He credited the victory to the strong manifesto of the party.

Maintaining that he didn’t know which portfolio would come his way, he said he was ready for any role that the party would assign him.

Luck didn’t favour him for the last two times Manpreet fought elections. After being expelled from SAD in 2010, he floated the People’s Party of Punjab and formed a political alliance with the CPI, CPM and Shiromani Akali Dal (Longowal).

The alliance fought the 2012 Assembly elections with Manpreet as its chief ministerial candidate.

Manpreet contested the elections from Maur and Gidderbaha constituencies and finished third at both seats. While in Gidderbaha, he lost to Congress’ Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, in Maur he lost to SAD’s Janmeja Singh Sekhon.

After the debacle in the Assembly elections, he had to merge his political outfit with the Congress in 2014 and to contest the Lok Sabha elections from the Bathinda seat.

He lost to SAD’s Harsimrat Kaur Badal by 19,395 votes.