Punjab byelections: Manpreet Badal is BJP’s pick for Gidderbaha
Former Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal, who became active in Gidderbaha almost two months ago, is the saffron party's pick for the Gidderbaha byelection slated for November 13.
The 62-year-old candidate nowadays terms Gidderbaha as his ‘karam bhoomi’ as he has earlier served as the MLA here for four times in a row by contesting the elections on the SAD ticket in 1995, 1997, 2002 and 2007. He, however, lost his fifth election as a People's Party of Punjab (PPP) candidate from here in 2012 from then first-timer Amrinder Singh Raja Warring. Thereafter, he shifted base to Bathinda, won as a Congress candidate in 2017, but lost even his security deposit in 2022 in the same constituency.
Thereafter, he remained politically inactive for some period and joined the BJP in January last year. In March this year, he developed heart problem and underwent a surgical procedure as well.
Manpreet had started his political career from the Gidderbaha bypoll in 1995, when his uncle and former CM, Parkash Singh Badal, had handed him over the constituency, which he himself had represented in the Vidhan Sabha for record five times — 1969, 1972, 1977, 1980 and 1985. The byelection was at that time held after then MLA Raghubir Singh Pardhan was convicted by a court.
In his political career of three decades, Manpreet has contested eight Assembly elections and one Lok Sabha election. Of these, he won five Assembly polls — four from Gidderbaha, one from Bathinda in 2017. He lost the elections from both Gidderbaha and Maur Assembly constituencies in 2012, the Lok Sabha election from Bathinda against SAD's Harsimrat Kaur Badal in 2014 and the Assembly election from Bathinda Urban in 2022.
He has served as a Finance Minister twice, first during the SAD-BJP government (2007-10) and later, under the Congress governments of Capt Amarinder Singh and Charanjit Singh Channi (2017-22). He has presented the state Budget for record nine times.
After the SAD expelled him in 2010, Manpreet had founded his own political outfit PPP in 2011 that he had merged with the Congress in 2016. He is presently facing a vigilance probe for a plot allotment in Bathinda.
