SAD struggles to recover lost ground in Gurdaspur

Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Gurdaspur, January 16

The SAD is pulling out all the stops to ensure that the party cadre is not demoralised any further in Gurdaspur district — once considered its stronghold — after the exit of four top leaders in the last one year.

At one time, among all district units in the state, the Gurdaspur SAD unit was considered to be the strongest one. From 2012 to 2017, there have been three ministers — Sucha Singh Langah, Sewa Singh Sekhwan and Balbir Singh Baath — and a Vidhan Sabha speaker, Nirmal Singh Kahlon, from this district. Several chairmen of corporations and boards, too, were from this area.

The district has six Assembly seats — Dera Baba Nanak, Qadian, Fatehgarh Churian, Gurdaspur, Dinanagar and Sri Hargobindpur. However, when it comes to the Parliamentary constituency, Sri Hargobindpur gets excluded as it forms a part of the Hoshiarpur constituency. In all, the Lok Sabha constituency has nine Vidhan Sabha seats.

Sekhwan, who represented Qadian, left his parent party to form a splinter group. In Gurdaspur city, district unit president and two-time MLA GS Babbehali is facing charges of criminal conspiracy after an FIR was lodged against him. Former heavyweight SS Langah, who lorded over Dera Baba Nanak, has been pushed into oblivion after a sleaze video surfaced in the run up to the 2017 by-poll. Veteran NS Kahlon, who ruled Fatehgarh Churian with an iron hand, is plagued with health problems.

Congressmen say various surveys undertaken recently by different agencies conclusively prove that the party will have a free run in the Qadian, Fatehgarh Churian, Gurdaspur and Dera Baba Nanak Assembly seats where the Akalis have virtually been rendered out of action.

“We have asked our party workers to focus only on four BJP-held seats of Dinanagar, Pathankot, Bhoa and Sujanpur as reports suggest that we face no opposition on seats held by SAD,” said a minister.

The charge is now being led by Batala’s sitting MLA Lakhbir Singh Lodhinangal and Majha zone youth president Ravi Karan Kahlon, who has also remained the chairman of Punjab Tubewell Corporation. He is regularly holding meetings of youth leaders and telling them to ensure that the party is strengthened in seats where it finds itself virtually headless.

“I agree that we are on the back foot but it is only a matter of time that the party will bounce back,” said SAD spokesman Daljeet Singh Cheema. However, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Cabinet minister and former Gurdaspur Congress committee chief, said: “We have reports that the SAD is totally marginalised in the district.”