In Gurdaspur, Dinesh Singh Babbu has his task cut out — consolidating Sikh vote

Tribune News Service

Ravi Dhaliwal

Pathankot, March 31

Dinesh Singh Babbu, who has bagged the BJP ticket for Gurdaspur parliamentary constituency, is a Rajput and reportedly had the backing of Union Minister Rajnath Singh. He is a three-time MLA from Sujanpur and has also been Deputy Speaker of the Vidhan Sabha in 2017 and a Chief Parliamentary Secretary (Food and Civil Supplies) from 2012 to 2017.

In the 2012 Assembly poll, he won by the highest margin recorded in Punjab. He had beaten Naresh Puri of the Congress by 26,000 votes. He quelled a strong challenge put up by a couple of strong contenders like Kavita Khanna, wife of late Vinod Khanna, BJP’s Pathankot MLA Ashwani Sharma and RSS-backed Batala industrialist Paramjit Singh Gill.

Babbu’s immediate task will be to draw a plan on how to garner the Sikh vote. Out of the nine Assembly constituencies in Gurdaspur Lok Sabha constituency, the Sikhs hold sway in Dera Baba Nanak, Gurdaspur, Qadian, Batala and Fatehgarh Churian.

In the 2019 elections, MP Sunny Deol took massive leads from the Hindu dominated seats of Bhoa, Pathankot, Dinanagar and Sujanpur. However, when the ballots for the Sikh seats were counted, he lost from Dera Baba Nanak and Fatehgarh Churian by 20,000 votes each. In Batala, he lost by 956 votes. He won the Qadian and Gurdaspur seats but only by small margins.

Party leaders say Babbu will have to take special care of these areas.

The names of Kavita Khanna and Ashwani Sharma were topping the list of contenders. However, a senior Union Minister is said to have put his foot down in his favour. He is known for his soft spoken, affable approach towards the public.

Sources say what tilted the scales in his favour was the 3 lakh strong Rajput vote in Bhoa, Pathankot, Sujanpur, Dinanagar and in some villages of Kahnuwan block of the Qadian Assembly segment. “If he gets some support from the five Sikh dominated segments, he has the potential to topple the best of the candidates from other parties. One of his foremost tasks will be to minimise the negativity generated by Deol,” said a Delhi-based BJP leader.

Babbu said he was happy that his party had reposed faith in him. “I am thankful to my seniors in Delhi and colleagues in the constituency for having backed my candidature,” he said.

During his three stints as legislator from Sujanpur, he has been responsible for bringing in the lift irrigation system in the 50-odd villages of the water-starved Dhar block, considered to be one of the most under-developed blocks of Punjab. Dhar forms a part of the Sujanpur assembly seat. He has also brought in several development initiatives like a co-education government college and a litchi research project.

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