Badals splurge MPLAD funds on Lambi

Archit Watts

Tribune News Service

Lambi, February 11

As parliamentary elections are around the corner, Badals have splurged MPLAD funds on the development of villages in Lambi Assembly constituency. Notably, Lambi is the home turf of former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. It falls in Bathinda parliamentary constituency, which is represented by his daughter-in-law, Union Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal.

The SAD patriarch had on Sunday called sarpanches owing allegiance to SAD at his Badal village residence.

He handed them over cheques issued by Harsimrat Kaur Badal. Cheques were given to nearly 25 village sarpanches and the amounts ranged from Rs 5 lakh to 12 lakh, said a SAD leader.

When contacted, Bikkar Singh, a senior SAD leader-cum-junior vice-president of SGPC, whose wife is sarpanch of Channu (East) village, said, “We have got two cheques for Rs 5.5 lakh and Rs 6.5 lakh for development works.”

Lambi Assembly constituency had played a major role in the victory of Harsimrat in 2014, when she was facing her estranged brother-in-law Manpreet Singh Badal as her rival. She got the highest lead of 34,219 votes from Lambi. This lead made her win the election for the second consecutive time as her margin was thin in other constituencies and she also trailed in three of the nine Assembly constituencies falling in her constituency.

Interestingly, she has adopted Mann village, which is also in Lambi constituency, to be developed as a model village under the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY).