Bhagwant Mann: Politics no laughing matter for former comedian

Chandigarh, January 18

Earlier, when people saw his face, they laughed. Now, AAP’s Punjab unit president Bhagwant Singh Mann says, they weep when they see him and narrate the problems they face.

The Punjab president of Arvind Kejriwal’s Aam Aadmi Party made the observation at a press meet on Tuesday, soon after his party declared him its CM face for next month’s assembly polls. Mann was contrasting his past as a comedian with his present role.

Mann, 48, remains a crowd-puller even as a politician, winning twice from the Sangrur Lok Sabha seat. In the AAP poll to pick the party’s chief ministerial candidate, 93 per cent of those who called or sent messages to a party number chose him.

Born in Sangrur’s Satoj village in October, 1973, Mann enrolled for a BCom degree from Shaheed Udham Singh government college in Sunam in the same district. He didn’t complete the course, but took part in several youth festivals.

Later, he brought out comedy videos and music albums. He went on to perform in Punjabi movies, including ‘22g Tusi Ghaint Ho’ and ‘Police in Pollywood’.

The Great Indian Laughter Challenge, a TV show on which Navjot Singh Sidhu—now the state unit chief of the rival Congress—also made many appearances, was a high point in his career as an entertainer.

At the Mohali press conference, Mann said people don’t laugh when they see his face now.

“Now, it is completely reverse. When I go to any public meeting or any meeting, people now cry when they look at my face while narrating their problems and saying save us, we are ruined, our children are in bad company…,” he said.

Mann’s political career began when he joined the Manpreet Singh Badal-led People’s Party of Punjab in 2011. Badal had floated the outfit after leaving the Shiromani Akali Dal. Later, the PPP merged with the Congress.

Mann fought from the Lehra assembly constituency in Sangrur as a PPP candidate in 2012 and lost to senior Congress leader Rajinder Kaur Bhattal.

In 2014, Mann joined the AAP and was pitted against Akali heavyweight Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa for the Sangrur Lok Sabha seat. He won by over two lakh votes. The AAP itself went on to win four Lok Sabha seats in Punjab.

Mann unsuccessfully contested the 2017 assembly polls against SAD’s Sukhbir Singh Badal for the Jalalabad seat. But Arvind Kejriwal’s won 20 seats in the 117-member Punjab Assembly, ending up as the state’s main opposition party. Mann was made its state unit chief.

He resigned from the post in 2018 after Arvind Kejriwal apologised to Akali leader Bikram Singh Majithia in a defamation case. He was back in the post next year.

Mann won the Sangrur seat again in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls with a margin over one lakh votes.

During his political career, Mann has been hounded by accusations that he has a “drinking problem”.

In 2016, the then AAP MP Harinder Singh Khalsa complained against him to the Lok Sabha Speaker, seeking a change in his seat. He alleged that Mann, who sat next to him, reeked of liquor.

At a 2019 rally in Barnala, in the presence of Kejriwal and his mother, Mann vowed to give up liquor. Mann had then accused his political rivals’ of defaming him by portraying him as a “born drunkard”.

The charge came up again in a TV interview on Tuesday.

“I have countered this. The public has also given its response,” he said, referring to his re-election from Sangrur. The opposition keeps hurling this baseless charge as it doesn’t have anything else to say against him, Mann claimed.