Amidst worry of dropped winning margin despite her electoral victory against estranged brother-in-law Manpreet Badal, Shiromani Akali Dal MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal on Sunday termed her re-election to the Parliament from Bathinda as “historic”.
Harsimrat, daughter-in-law of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and wife of Deputy Chief Minister-cum-SAD president Sukhbir Badal, said that she had defeated a four-party united opposition led by Manpreet.
“The 2014 contest in Bathinda would go down in history as a unique one when a SAD-BJP candidate defeated a joint candidate of a conglomeration of four parties - the People’s Party of Punjab (PPP), Congress, CPI and the SAD-longowal,” she said in a statement.
Manpreet had contested on Congress symbol from Bathinda and lost to Harsimrat who made her entry to Parliament for the second time in a row.
Notably, the senior Badal could not campaign for his daughter-in-law, but his Assembly segment — lambi played a major role in securing her a win. At the same time, Sukhbir was upset with Harsimrat’s slight victory margin especially at Bathinda and Mansa towns, and it is believed that party leaders here could have to face the heat.
Thanking people, she said, “I am grateful to the people for giving me the highest voter share of 43.7 per cent which is second only to AAP’s Sangrur candidate Bhagwant Mann who won by over two lakh votes.”
Reminding Manpreet not to try to hoodwink people as was his habit, second time Bathinda MP said that it was a fact that she had won a clear and decisive victory and even increased her vote share.
She said that her rival Manpreet lost by 1.15 lakh votes, despite stitching together a grand coalition and even succeeding in propping up a weak Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate.
MP said that not only Manpreet, but national parties also displayed political opportunism. “Congress and the CPI failed to arrive at an understanding with each other on any seat in the country except Bathinda,” she said claiming that even AAP colluded with Manpreet to put up an ineffective and weak candidate Jasraj Singh who deliberately led a lacklustre campaign.