Know Your MLAs: The 4 who made it House ── a doctor, a transporter, a marticulate, an ex-sarpanch

Hardeep Singh Dimpy Dhillon

Age: 57

Political party: AAP

Constituency: Gidderbaha

AAP candidate Hardeep Singh Dimpy Dhillon. (Image: ECI website)

Dimpy Dhillon switched from the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) to the AAP on August 28. He was a part of the SAD for more than four decades.

Earlier, he unsuccessfully contested the Gidderbaha Assembly seat as an SAD candidate in 2017 and 2022. He is an agriculturist and owns Deep Transports, which operates private buses on various routes in and around Punjab. He graduated from Panjab University, Chandigarh. In 2022, he lost to the Congress’s Amarinder Singh Raja Warring by a narrow margin of 1,349 votes, while he had lost by over 16,000 votes to the same opponent in 2017.

Dhillon was announced as the AAP candidate about seven weeks after joining the party. But he was actively campaigning in the area prior to the announcement, as Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had indicated that he would be nominated as the Gidderbaha candidate on the day of his joining.

Local AAP workers were reportedly disgruntled when he joined the party, and many did not attend the event wherein CM Mann welcomed Dhillon into the party.

Pritpal Sharma, the AAP candidate who had unsuccessfully contested Gidderbaha in 2017, resigned from the party and switched to the BJP after Dhillon was declared as the AAP candidate.

Dhillon defeated Amrita Warring by 21,969 votes, a record victory margin for this constituency. Whereas former finance minister and BJP candidate Manpreet Singh Badal could get only 12,227 votes and lost his security deposit. Amrita Warring is the wife of Ludhiana MP and Punjab Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring. This seat fell vacant after sitting Congress MLA Amrinder Warring won from the Ludhiana Lok Sabha seat.

Kuldeep Singh Kala Dhillon

Age: 51

Political party: Indian National Congress

Constituency: Barnala

INC candidate Kuldeep Singh Kala Dhillon.

Kuldeep Singh Kala Dhillon is much in the news as he is the lone Congress leader in Punjab to have won the bye-elections this time. Kuldeep Dhillon defeated AAP’s Harinder Singh Dhaliwal by 2,157 votes. He has completed Class 10. Kuldeep Dhillon joined politics in 2013 after the death of his elder brother Harinder Singh Sira Dhillon, who was a former president of the Punjab Youth Congress.

In 2016, he joined the AAP and was named the party’s Barnala district president. He even campaigned for then-AAP candidate Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer in the 2017 Assembly elections. However, the Congress came back to power in the state and he soon switched back to his old party.

Locals said Kuldeep Dhillon has remained accessible to them all these years with or without holding an important position in the party. Two years ago, he was appointed the president of the Barnala District Congress Committee.

After his victory, Leader of Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa said, “Kala Dhillon is a person who rose from the grassroots. His connection with the public made him victorious.”

Dr Ishank Chabbewal

Age: 31

Political party: AAP

Constituency: Chabbewal (SC)

AAP candidate Dr Ishank Chabbewal. (Image: ECI website)

He is the son of AAP Hoshiarpur MP Dr Raj Kumar Chabbewal. He completed his MBBS from Ludhiana’s DMCH and is pursuing an MD in radiology. This was Ishank Chabbewal’s maiden election, which he won by a record margin of 28,690 against Congress’s Ranjit Kumar. Ishank Chabbewal has remained a core committee member of his father’s campaign since 2017 and is also part of the NGO, Koshish, floated by his father. He was active in the constituency and was heard addressing crowds at many social events much before his candidature was declared.

Ishank Chabbewal’s father won as a Congress candidate in 2017 and 2022 but joined the AAP in March this year. He, thereafter, won the Hoshiarpur Lok Sabha seat.

Gurdeep Singh Randhawa

Age: 55

Political party: AAP

Constituency: Dera Baba Nanak

AAP candidate Gurdeep Singh Randhawa. (Image: ECI website)

Gurdeep Singh Randhawa defeated Congress heavyweight Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa’s wife Jatinder Kaur Randhawa by 5,699 votes. He had unsuccessfully contested the 2022 polls from the Dera Baba Nanak constituency and finished third despite a strong AAP wave in Punjab. However, locals said he did not leave the constituency after the loss and became more active in the area after the then-sitting Congress MLA Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa won the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat earlier this year. Gurdeep Singh Randhawa is also the senior vice-chairman of the Punjab Infrastructure Development Board. He started his political journey as sarpanch of his native Shahpur Jajan village.