Harsimrat and Warring on the ground, Gidderbaha bypoll contest to be tough

Bathinda: The Nov 13 byelection to Gidderbaha assembly seat is likely to be hard-fought one as SAD has deployed party chief Sukhbir Singh Badal’s wife, Bathinda MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal, to wrest the seat from Congress.
Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, who had won thrice from Gidderbaha since 2012 and vacated the seat after he won the Lok Sabha election from Ludhiana, too has started to drum up support for the Congress in the seat.
Gidderbaha and neighbouring Barnala seat had been Akali strongholds till they were wrested by the Congress. Both seats had chief ministers (CMs) for MLAs in Parkash Singh Badal (Gidderbaha) and Surjit Singh Barnala (Barnala) Akali stalwart and former CM Parkash Singh Badal had won from Gidderbaha from 1969 to 1985. Akalis did not contest the 1992 elections and the Congress won the seat that year. Badal later handed down the constituency to his nephew Manpreet Singh Badal, who first won from the seat in a bypoll in 1995.
Manpreet then won in 1997, 2002 and 2007. In 2010, he parted ways with Akali Dal and formed People’s Party of Punjab. When he contested the 2012 election as a PPP candidate from the seat, Manpreet lost to Warring. Now, however, with Warring being the MP from Ludhiana, the Badal family is keen on wresting back the seat. SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal had been managing the party’s campaign from Gidderbaha until he was declared a tankhaiya last month. Now, his wife has taken over the campaign.