After 4 years, Manpreet, cousin Jagbir Brar patch up

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, June 29

If it was a changed political stance that separated former Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Badal and his ex-MLA cousin Jagbir Brar, it is now a common political forum which has again brought the duo together.

The cousins, who had not been seeing eye to eye after Brar had dumped Manpreet’s PPP to join the Congress in mid-December 2011, will be seen together after four-and-a-half years tomorrow morning.

Brar, who is District Congress Committee (Rural) president, has invited Manpreet for breakfast at his place tomorrow as the latter will be here to take a slew of meetings in connection as election manifesto committee incharge of the Congress.

Brar, who had been elected SAD MLA from Jalandhar Cantonment in 2007, was so close to Manpreet that he quit his MLA-ship and the Shiromani Akali Dal in April 2011 to join the PPP. However, the duo did not get along for long.

Brar quit the PPP within eight months giving a big blow to Manpreet just a month-and-a-half ahead of the Assembly elections. The separation at that point of time had become the talk of the town.

Tomorrow’s meeting of the two cousins is being termed as ‘Bharat Milap’, after the legendary meeting of brothers in the Ramayana. It is said to have been orchestrated by PPCC chief Capt Amarinder Singh.

Brar had stayed away from earlier meetings held here by Manpreet on January 16 and February 9 after the latter merged his party with the Congress.

Post-breakfast, Manpreet will accompany Brar to the solid waste management site at Jamsher to show solidarity with the villagers of the area.

Jagbir Brar confirmed the development. Asked how the gap got bridged, Brar replied, “There were some well-wishers who have brought us together. There was no major fight between the two of us.”

Manpreet Badal, former CM Rajinder Kaur Bhattal and Gurpartap Mann will be here for the whole day holding as many as 25 meetings with different sections of society. They will reportedly get feedback forms filled from morning walkers at Burlton Park.

Various unions are expected to meet the manifesto committee members at Circuit House as well as a hotel here near Nakodar Chowk.