Woman with UP roots in fray in Panthic hotbed
Jumping into the fray by a migrant family in the panchayat elections at Rode village of Moga, the birthplace of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, the radical Sikh leader who was killed in 1984, has started a political debate in this area.
On this SC reserved seat, a local Sikh Dalit woman and Sunita Rani, a daughter-in-law from a UP migrant family, are locking horns for the post of sarpanch.
Political mudslinging started after a gangster-turned–social activist-turned politician, Lakha Sidhana, accused a SAD leader of “fielding” the ‘migrant’ in the panchayat elections, eyeing the large number of migrant votes in the state.
However, Gurjant Singh Bhutto, executive committee member of SAD and circle president of the party, alleged that this kind of smear campaign against migrants and opposing them in the election due to them being migrants in Punjab are not good signs for lakhs of Punjabi settled in different parts of India and abroad.
Brij Lal, Sunita Rani’s father-in-law, claimed that his father had come to Punjab in 1965 from Amethi in UP and started working as a gardener in a government college. He claimed that he was born in Punjab and also his two sons, including Manoj Kumar, husband of Sunita Rani. His elder son Manoj is an MA, B.Ed and younger son is a diploma holder in chemical engineering and works at Pune. “Identifying my children as migrants is not justified,” said Brij Lal.
