Badal bahu and local MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal has lived in Delhi for most part of her tenure rather than her constituency Bathinda. This has now become a poll issue here with not only her rival Manpreet Singh Badal targeting her but also people in the urban areas.
Harsimrat, nevertheless is refuting the charges vehemently. She has been telling people that Rs 20 crore — the highest by any MP — has been spent by her in Bathinda constituency.
“I have spent Rs 20 crore on you people only…the maximum by any MP from what they get….you are seeing me for 15 days….but you are not aware of the efforts that I have been putting in for realising your needs and meeting your demands,” said Harsimrat while addressing a gathering in one of many nondescript villages, Baho Sivian, in her constituency.
Emphasising on the amount of effort she has put in, Harsimrat went on to add, “These ROs (reverse osmosis), tube wells, schools, and other things that have come up in these years was done after a lot of effort….I moved around in Delhi to get the funds…worked in Chandigarh to get the files of various projects cleared…it’s not an easy thing to do.”
Alike Baho Sivian village, the neighbouring Baho Yatri, and almost every other village heard the same contention and justification of their MP, who is now seeking her re-election as SAD-BJP combine nominee.
Her assertion is significant as her virtual absence has not gone unnoticed by the urban voters. They have been openly blaming Harsimrat with her continuous presence in New Delhi for some of the issues plaguing the constituency.
There’s no denying to the fact that Harsimrat, during her five-year tenure, has stayed more in Delhi than her home State, as supported by her statistics of 80 per cent attendance in Parliament.
And while she was taking care of her kids there, and raising Sikh-centric issues instead of related to her constituency in particular, in the Parliament, her father-in-law Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and husband Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal took good care of her constituency.
As the elections drew near, Harsimrat left behind the role of a parliamentarian, and donned the garb of a campaigner to help the Badals emerge victorious in a battle of prestige with the Chief Minister’s estranged nephew Manpreet Badal throwing his hat in the ring as Congress-People’s Party of Punjab
candidate.
Just a few months before the polls, she was making her presence felt not only in the hoardings and posters, but also a decorous emergence in sangat darshans, apparently becoming omnipresent seen in every nook and corner of the constituency disbursing largesse of MPlADS funds.
Being a Badal Bahu, she has been enjoying the status that no other MP of her time has relished, and has the entire Government machinery at her beck and call, literally.
People said that she has made many promises, but fulfilled few. While the electorate in the rural area of her constituency are “satisfied” with installation of RO systems in almost all villages, road network, power supply, etc, the urban voters rue their MP’s apathy towards poor sewerage system, pot-holed roads, not having potable drinking water, among other things.
“The development that SAD is bragging about is there only on the face of it, but in actual, there is nothing. They say we have good road network, but in reality all have been dug up for lying sewerage and lying in the same condition for almost a year,” a resident of Bathinda’s Parshuram Nagar said.
On the contrary, some believed that she has been able to bring some projects too. “She is the one to think about having a Girls College, and set up the same in Mansa…City bus service has been started…AC bus from Mansa to Amritsar was also started for pilgrimage,” added another resident.
As The Pioneer interacted with a cross section of people in Bathinda, it was found that though Harsimrat promised to establish Bathinda airport, an old-age home in Mansa, besides a woman hospital there, nothing could be done.
The youngsters, especially the jobless, felt sorry about the state of affairs, and maintained that though it was announced that jobs would be provided in thermal plants at Banawali and Gobindpura, “there were no job opportunities at Banawali, while Gubindpura could not be started owing opposition… only refinery has provided jobs”