In the run-up to the Punjab assembly elections next year, Manpreet Badal’s People’s Party of Punjab (PPP) formally merged with the Congress party on Friday. The sauve Manpreet spokemuch the same language as the AAP-against VIP culture, about ridding the state of corruption and nepotism. “We are starting our campaign on a good note”, the Congress tweets quoted Captain Amarinder Singh as saying. “Recently, when Arvind Kejriwal shared the stage with Lalu Prasad in Bihar, political rivals used it as an opportunity”, said an AAP leader. In fact, AAP leaders who were pitching for Manpreet’s entry later withdrew in the face of the opposition.
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Manpreet had launched his own outfit called People’s Party of Punjab after having differences with his uncle Prakash Singh Badal and his cousin Sukhbir Singh Badal. This merger has taken six long months… His party could not secure a single seat in the Assembly either. “He had been a rebel in the Congress in the last few years”. Congress lost two consecutive assembly elections in Punjab to Shiromani Akali Dal-BJP combine.
Manpreet, however, had lost the parliamentary elections in Bathinda where stood against his sister-in-law Harsimrat Kaur.
The alliance did not impress Mann who contacted the AAP, which offered Manpreet to head its state unit. Party sources said going into with an alliance had hit the party’s image in the past. “As far as I know AAP never approached Manpreet to join us”.
His chance meeting with Rahul Gandhi at a function of Doon School came as a windfall for him. It appears to have gained more popular support since then. In the numbers game too, the AAP rally won hands down against the crowds at Akali Dal and Congress rallies.
Notwithstanding the usual “my-rally-bigger-than-yours” comparisons, Muktsar marks a tectonic shift, the first tremors of which were felt in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls when AAP burst into Punjab in the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. He is “not trustworthy”, Amarinder said, adding that the AAP national convenor had even ditched activist Anna Hazare. He also said that Punjab is witnessing spate of developments and so appealed to the people not to put a spanner in the progress journey by falling for the false promises of other parties.
“Manpreet disgraced the name of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh by taking a false oath in the martyrs’ name at Khatkar Kalaan in 2011”, said Harcharan Singh Bains, SAD General Secretary.
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In a statement in Chandigarh, senior SAD leaders including Prem Singh Chandumajra and Balwinder Singh Bhundur alleged Mr Manpreet Badal had become part of Congress back in 2010 when he “conspired with the party to destabilise” the SAD-BJP government.
