Old horse Ghubaya knows his game well

Rajmeet Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, April 20

The two-time former SAD MP from Ferozepur, Sher Singh Ghubaya, who recently shifted loyalties to the Congress, knows to play his game well.

Just a few days before the announcement of the LS elections, he resigned from the primary membership of the Akali Dal. Ferozepur has been an Akali citadel for over 25 years, which Ghubaya claims was due to his credentials.

A major chunk of the population belongs to Rai Sikhs, the community to which he belongs to.

He boasts of having garnered support for SAD chief Sukhbir Badal from the latter’s Jalalabad segment.

But relations between the two strained as Sukhbir “sidelined” him after winning the seat. Playing his cards well, he made his son Davinder Singh Ghubaya join the Congress ahead of the 2017 Assembly elections and helped him win elections from Fazilka.

His relations with the Akali Dal turned sour after his “anti-Akali” video clip appeared before the 2017 elections. In December 2016, the Vigilance Bureau under the previous SAD-BJP regime raided a private engineering college owned by his family over complaints of embezzlement.

Ghubaya had defeated Congress heavyweight Sunil Jakhar in 2014. In the 2009 Lok Sabha polls, he had defeated then Congress leader Jagmeet Singh Brar.