Why AAP’s choices in Punjab’s Bathinda Rural put the ‘layman’s party’ in the eye of a storm

It needs to be mentioned that Bathinda Rural is a reserved constituency from where Kotfatta had contested for the second time in a row. In 2017 he was with Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) but got defeated by the first-timer Rupinder Ruby of the AAP. The 29-year-old won the seat by a margin of 10,718 votes. However, Ruby faced criticism due to her inaccessibility to the people and in November 2021 she quit AAP and joined the Congress in the presence of the then Punjab CM Charanjit Singh Channi. Ruby was the last-minute pick by the AAP for Bathinda Rural in the 2017 Assembly polls, ignoring its founder members in the area.

Meanwhile, Amit Rattan Kotfatta who was with the Shiromani Akali Dal was expelled from the party in June 2020, on charges of duping his party workers by promising them business opportunities. Many farmers of the constituency had also complained that they were duped by Kotfatta. However, no police case was lodged against him at that time.

Despite Kotfatta being caught in controversies, he was inducted by the AAP in the first week of January 2022, ahead of the Assembly elections. The party announced him as the AAP candidate from Bathinda Rural on January 9, within a day of joining the party. The decision had drawn severe criticism from its founder members who had been ignored yet again.

One Baldev Singh, a retired class 1 officer who had joined AAP in 2016 soon after retirement from the industry department, had been taking care of the constituency when Ruby was inaccessible to the masses for most of the time during her tenure as MLA. At once he had even announced to contest as an Independent but later he became silent on the issue. Baldev remained as the president of the ex-employees’ wing of AAP of five districts – Bathinda, Mansa, Muktsar, Ferozepur and Fazilka before becoming a ticket aspirant from Bathinda Rural.

Punjab went to polls on February 20, 2022. Throughout the campaign SAD leaders and especially SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal had been highlighting that a person who was expelled by the SAD two years ago on corruption charges had been chosen as Bathinda Rural candidate by the AAP. During the election campaign, a farmer’s body Bharti Kisan Union Ekta Ugrahan’s Sangat block members had staged a dharna outside the residence of Kotfatta for three days, much to the embarrassment of the party. The protesters had alleged that in 2017 Kotfatta had got some surveys done by youngsters who were not paid for it. They said that the collective amount to be paid ran into lakhs of rupees, which Rattan was evading.

A few persons had also filed a complaint to the Inspector-General of Bathinda alleging that a company floated by Kotfatta’s accomplice had duped many youngsters by collecting money from them. They had also written to AAP national convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal to review the decision to make Kotfatta as the party’s candidate.

Kotfatta, however, had denied all the allegations at that time and sought evidence of corruption charges being levelled against him. Despite these protests and charges, the votes turned in favour of Kotfatta and he won with a margin of 35,479 votes defeating SAD’s Parkash Singh Bhatti. The margin was huge because of a very strong AAP wave in Punjab.

Kotfatta who has done BTech in mechanical engineering from a private college in Fatehgarh Sahib always uses the prefix ‘Engineer’ before his name on social media pages. His wife Sanmeet Kaur is a 2007 batch IPS officer posted in Nagaland.

The Punjab Government was very proactive to come in support of the MLA. On its official Twitter handle the government had mentioned that an alleged close aide of MLA Bathinda Rural was nabbed by the Vigilance Bureau on Thursday evening.

A few television channels had been running headlines of the MLA also getting arrested while the government called it fake news on their official Twitter handle.

Despite the fact that only Reshim Garg has been booked, AAP is being targeted by the Opposition leaders who have called for an investigation in this matter. The voters of the constituency have also called for a thorough investigation as the complainant had mentioned the name of the MLA as well.

Thursday’s incident has put the AAP in a tight spot yet again as they have to face another bypoll of Jalandhar Lok Sabha in the coming months. Meanwhile, legal team of Kotfatta have clarified that money was recovered from the third party and hence the MLA can’t be blamed. Moreover they said that in 2020 when charges were levelled against him for alleged duping no charges had been established because of which no police case had been lodged against him even at that time.

Sources said that one Pritpal Kumar alias Kaka had complained to the police that a bribe of Rs 4 lakh was sought from him on Thursday evening. When he went to give Rs 4 lakh to Garg on the premises of the Circuit House, the MLA was sitting inside a room in the Circuit House. Kaka is the husband of Seema Rani, who is the sarpanch of Ghudda village.

Kotfatta’s supporters are still playing the same Aam Aadmi (common man) card as they claim that the MLA is being defamed by the Opposition as he is an upright person.

On Friday SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal asked CM Mann to take strict action against Kotfatta who has been “infected with a disease of corruption” instead of saving him. “It is strange that despite the fact that complainant Pritpal Kumar has mentioned the MLA’s name, he is being saved by the Punjab government. This exposes the dubious character of the party that talks of honesty,” Badal alleged.