Manpreet can pose formidable challenge to Harsimrat Badal in Bathinda

Wednesday, 24/07/2013

http://www.punjabnewsline.com/news/manpreet-can-pose-formidable-challenge-to-harsimrat-badal-in-bathinda/83379

CHANDIGARH: People’s Party of Punjab Chief and former finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal can pose a formidable challenge to his sister-in-law and sitting Akali Dal MP from Bathinda Harsimrat Kaur Badal provided he is put up by the entire opposition as a common candidate to give one to one fight. For this purpose, the alliance between the Congress and the Sanjha Morcha has to materialize of which PPP is a part.

State Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa has been advocating unity of secular forces in Punjab to challenge the aggressive  Akali Dal-BJP combine which has been on a winning spree since 2007 and thus demoralizing the Congress in the process.

Sanjha Morcha is not averse to the idea. The understanding between the Congress and the Sanjha Morcha worked well in the elections to the panchayat bodies without announcing any formal alliance. Manpreet is in favour of continuing this arrangement for the municipal elections also.

The Sanjha Morcha  includes, besides the PPP, the Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Akali Dal (Longowal). The national executive of the CPI is not averse to state level understanding with the secular forces though at the national level, pre-poll alliance with the Congress is ruled out. However, the Left is aware of the challenge in the forthcoming Lok Sabha elections from the extreme right with a polarizing leader like Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi having been given the charge of BJP’s campaign. For all practical purposes, he is the BJP candidate for the office of the Prime Minister, though the final announcement waits.

In Punjab, it is the PPP which has demonstrated that it has more support than the Left parties combined going by the vote share in the last Assembly election. The CPI(M)  at the state level has not given any signal to the call of the state Congress chief to the democratic and secular forces to give a united fight to the Akali Dal-BJP alliance. Over the years, the support base of the CPI(M) has been considerably eroded.

Such an understanding between the Congress and the PPP was in the air before the Moga Assembly bye-election but the state could not be worked out for various reasons, one of which was the paucity of time.

Now the opposition has all the time  to draw its strategy and work out winning permutation and combination. With the Congress and the PPP being positive, it would not be difficult to arrive at some understanding.

Under such a situation, Manpreet would be in a position to pose  a serious challenge to Harsimrat in Bathinda which is going to be the most prestigious seat for the Badal family. Harsimrat is the wife of Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal.

In the last Lok Sabha elections, she had won by the highest margin in the state by trouncing Raninder Singh, son of then state Congress President Capt. Amarinder Singh. Manpreet had worked for his sister-in-law in that election. Moreover, the CPI has its own base in Bathinda as the party had won this seat earlier in alliance with the Congress. With the Congress and the Sanjha Morcha joining hands by sorting out irritants, if any, Manpreet could be a force to reckon with in that area against Harsimrat.