From Parliament to state, Doabites made their presence felt

JALANDHAR, December 22

The year began with ‘badlav’ in not just the Doaba region, but also entire Punjab with the Aam Aadmi Party forming its maiden government with a thumping majority.

Moments of pride for the region

• First-ever oath-taking ceremony held at Khatkar Kalan village
• Harbhajan Singh, Balbir Singh Seechewal & Ashok Mittal made it to RS
• Brahm Shankar Jimpa became the only Doaba minister in AAP Cabinet

Caught on wrong foot

• Jagir Kaur expelled from SAD ahead of SGPC chief polls
• Sunder Sham Arora’s arrest by the Vigilance Bureau
• Amritpal’s followers damaging benches at gurdwaras

The bigger surprise for the Doabites was the swearing-in ceremony being held in the region for the first time, with Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann taking oath in the ancestral Khatkar Kalan village on March 16.

Though the Doabites retained some faces by re-electing Rana Gurjeet Singh from Kapurthala, Balwinder Dhaliwal from Phagwara, Sukhpal Khaira from Bholath, Pargat Singh from Jalandhar Cantt, Bawa Henry from Jalandhar North, Dr Sukhwinder Sukhi from Banga and Dr Raj Chabbewal from Chabbewal, but the majority of legislators are new leaders. This year also saw the jodi of AAP MLAs Sheetal Angural and Raman Arora from Jalandhar West and Jalandhar Central, respectively, remaining in the limelight, more often for some controversial reasons.

This year turned out bad for Sunder Sham Arora, former minister from Hoshiarpur who remained in the previous Cabinet for the longest tenure. Not only did he lose elections, but his attempt to join the BJP did not help him escape from the hands of the Vigilance Bureau. Even worse is that his bail plea also got rejected. His past close aide and now rival from the seat – Brahm Shankar Jimpa of the AAP, however, has managed to steal all the charm by being the only pick of the party from the region in the Punjab Cabinet.

AAP’s only second timer from Doaba Jai Krishan Rouri of Garhshankar, too, has earned a better luck. Though he could not fetch a ministerial berth for himself, he got appointed as the Deputy Speaker of Vidhan Sabha.

AAP gave a good representation to the Doaba-based personalities in getting them nominated to the Rajya Sabha. Among them have been cricketer Harbhajan Singh, environmentalist Balbir Singh Seechewal and educationist Ashok Mittal.

Obviously under the new set up, the Congress leadership from the region has been lying low. But it has been Tejinder Bittu from Jalandhar, who has outshone all the way by working hard as the incharge of the party in the neighbouring hill state of Himachal Pradesh and has got to his credit bringing victory for the party.

The SAD, however, hit a further low in the region as its firebrand leader Jagir Kaur was ousted amidst her stand to contest the SGPC chief’s elections against the party’s choice in November this year. Being quite outspoken, she has clearly damaged the party further.

The last month of the year also saw a new controversy taking place with Sikh activist Amritpal Singh starting his campaign of removing benches in gurdwaras from the Doaba region. His first action took place in Kapurthala but the second major action of setting the benches on fire at Model Town gurdwara created a lot of ripples in the social, political and cultural circles.