Manpreet, father say no to voting

Archit Watts

Tribune News Service

Badal, September 20

Even though Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal, a voter from Badal village, appealed to the voters in his Bathinda Assembly segment to campaign for the party candidate, neither he nor anyone from his family exercised their franchise on Wednesday in the Zila Parishad and Panchayat Samiti polls.

On the other hand, former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal and Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal did cast their votes.

The elderly Badal was the first in the family to cast his vote at 8.48 am. Both Sukhbir and Harsimrat had come to the polling booth around 3.30 pm.

Besides, Maheshinder Singh Badal, a Congress leader, who has left active politics, too cast his vote.

Further, some other relatives of the Badals in the Opposition had come from Chandigarh and other towns to cast their votes in the village.

Hardeep Sigh, a polling agent of the Congress at polling booth 103, said, “None from the family of Manpreet Singh Badal cast their votes.”

Similarly, Khemraj Garg, presiding officer of polling booth 103 at Badal village, said, “Manpreet Badal and his father Gurdas Badal did not come to cast their votes. In this booth, 486 of total 930 votes were polled.”

Notably, the polling had started after a delay of nearly 15 minutes here as one ballot box got sealed due to some mistake by the polling staff.