Brig vs Major in Balachaur

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Balachaur, January 8

If it’s a Captain (Amarinder Singh) versus a General (JJ Singh) from Patiala Urban, a retired Brigadier is taking on a Major from Balachaur. While the Aam Aadmi Party picked Brig Raj Kumar (60), party worker Major Jarnail Singh (49) turned rebel and recently became a nominee of the Aapna Punjab Party (APP).

Raj Kumar is a Gujjar, just like two other contestants — four-time MLA Ch Nand Lal (SAD) and Darshan Manguwal of the Congress. Jarnail, a Jat Sikh, claims that he is in the fray to bring justice to non-Gujjar communities as the Gujjars, having remained in power here, have enjoyed most of the benefits. Gujjars comprise about 30 per cent of the population in the constituency.

Campaigning at Saroya village, Raj Kumar terms Jarnail a “party-hopper”, having switched over from the Congress to AAP and then to APP, while the latter terms the former an “outsider”.

There are about 1,100 ex-servicemen and 2,200-odd serving Army personnel in Balachaur; both leaders are claiming their support. While Raj Kumar served the Army for 36 years, Jarnail took premature retirement in 2007 after 20 years of service.

Talking about his family, Raj Kumar says, “My daughter, Neha Chaudhary, is a commercial pilot in New Delhi, while my son, Capt Arjun Chaudhary, is posted in Leh. Both can’t come for campaigning because of their jobs.”

“Me and my wife were putting up with our daughter in Delhi when I observed AAP’sworking. Iwas impressed. Having retired two years ago, I felt that this party could provide me a platform to work in my native place,” he adds.

“Then, we moved here. I was born in a village near Garhshankar. My schooling up to Class IV was in a government school at Balachaur, after which I went to Sainik School, Kapurthala. My father, Dhyan Chand, served as a patwari in Balachaur. This constituency is so backward that some villages don’t even have water supply. Women have to fetch it from neighbouring areas.”

Jarnail’s wife is a lecturer at Fatehgarh Sahib, while his daughters are studying at Panjab University and DPS School in Chandigarh. “My family is too busy to do canvassing,” he says.

The two officers have a common take on the two kinds of battles. “You have to strategise in both cases. You can somewhat predict the enemy’s next move from across the border, but not in a political contest. It was a regimented life for us in the Army, but here things are chaotic — but more interesting. The meal times, in particular, have become erratic.”