All is not well with district Congress

Nikhila Pant Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, February 18

Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal, who has been facing protests by the GNDTP employees and staff of various other government departments, is now facing another challenge in the form of factionalism in the District Congress Committee.

While the minister and his wife, Veenu Badal, have been holding public meetings in the Bathinda (Urban) constituency and listening to the issues being faced by the residents, the other faction has also begun to mobilise its cadre and hold parallel meetings with the public and party workers.

After a year-long interval, Iqbal Singh Dhillon, considered to be the right-hand man of Harminder Singh Jassi, has become active and has started holding public meetings.

Dhillon, who is also the secretary of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee, today held a meeting in Ward Number 6.

During the meeting, apart from hearing grievances of the residents of Bharat Nagar, Patel Nagar, Kamla Nehru Colony, Green Avenue, Jujhar Singh Nagar and Parinda Road, Dhillon assured that the public issues would be addressed soon.

While the leaders have been denying it, factionalism in the district unit of the party runs deep.

Harminder Singh Jassi had been trying to get the Lok Sabha ticket from the Bathinda constituency against the SAD candidate Harsimrat Kaur Badal.

The party high command voted in favour of Manpreet Singh Badal. Jassi and his supporters didn’t come out openly in support of Badal for the first few weeks of the latter’s campaign.

History repeated itself in 2017 when Jassi again tried to get the Bathinda (Urban) ticket for the Assembly polls but the ticket went to Badal as he had polled more votes than Harsimrat Kaur Badal in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections in the constituency while Jassi had finished second in the Talwandi Sabo by-elections in 2014.

To pacify Jassi, the party fielded him from Maur constituency. While Manpreet wrested the Bathinda (Urban) seat from SAD’s Sarup Chand Singla, Jassi lost to AAP candidate Jagdev Singh Kamalu.

The bomb blast at the end of a campaign rally by Jassi in Maur left him shaken after which he didn’t even come out to campaign.

While the minister has been maintaining that there is no factionalism in the party and that all are welcome to move with him, Dhillon said, “The minister is holding meetings as it is his constituency and I am holding meetings since Jassi sahib served the constituency for 10 years and if the people need us, we will attend to their complaints. We have been sharing the good and bad times with the people of the constituency and would continue to do so.”