With ‘low-profile’ candidate Jeet Mohinder, Congress hopes to shift equation in high-stakes battle for Bathinda seat

Just before the 2014 parliamentary elections, Jeet Mohinder – the sitting MLA then – had resigned from the Congress as well as his Assembly seat Talwandi Sabo and joined the Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) in a bid to strengthen the prospects of the party’s Bathinda candidate, Harsimrat Kaur Badal in the Lok Sabha polls. He was later re-elected to the Assembly seat on an SAD(B) ticket in a bypoll held after the parliamentary elections. This was the model that the BJP later adopted on a large scale to enable defections from the Congress party across the country.

In the 2014 parliamentary polls, Harsimrat Kaur had secured the lead from the Talwandi Sabo Assembly segment under the Bathinda constituency with over 11,000 votes. It was a big lead, as she defeated her brother-in-law and Congress candidate Manpreet Singh Badal in a high-stakes battle with an overall narrow margin of just 19,000 votes. The election results that year would have been different if Jeet Mohinder had not switched from the Congress to SAD(B) in the last hour.

The son of former IAS officer Bhupinder Singh Sidhu, who also acted as Punjab Public Service Commissioner, Jeet Mohinder Singh Sidhu first contested unsuccessfully from the Talwandi Sabo Assembly constituency in 1997 on an SAD(B) ticket. He contested as an Independent from the seat in 2002 and defeated the then Congress candidate Harminder Singh Jassi. He was then taken into the party fold by then Congress chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh in 2004 and got the party ticket in 2007 from Talwandi Sabo and won. He last won on a Congress party ticket in 2012 and switched to the SAD(B) in 2014.

Defeated twice from the Talwandi Sabo Assembly seat – on an SAD ticket in 2017 and 2022 – Jeet Mohinder rejoined the Congress just five months ago. He surprised many by managing to get the ticket from Bathinda from where the party’s major candidates like Captain Amarinder Singh’s son Raninder Singh (2009), former finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal (2014), and sitting MLA and current Congress state chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring (2019) have all unsuccessfully contested against Harsimrat Kaur Badal. This makes Jeet Mohinder’s candidature even more challenging for the Congress.

Having won the last two parliamentary elections in Bathinda with close margins, the nervousness in the SAD(B) camp was palpable even as the party withheld the announcement of its Bathinda candidate in the first list, especially when it was expected that Harsimrat Kaur Badal was all set to contest for the fourth time in a row.

Even as it tries to recover from its worst phase in Bathinda, the SAD(B) has a bigger challenge from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) which has fielded Cabinet minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian in the seat. ‘Giant killer’ Khudian had defeated former Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal in Lambi in the 2022 Assembly polls.

Khudian, who has also been using the image of his father and former Akali MP Jagdev Singh Khudian to garner support, recently visited the house of Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) member from Mansa, Mithu Singh Kaneke.

The BJP meanwhile is yet to officially announce its candidate in Bathinda. Parampal Kaur, a former IAS officer and the daughter-in-law of SAD(B) leader and former minister Sikander Singh Maluka, has unofficially announced that she will contest from Bathinda after having joined the BJP recently. However, she too is considered a low-profile candidate.

A high-profile candidate from the Congress would have increased the worries of the SAD(B), whereas Jeet Mohinder Sidhu would first need to win over the party workers and leaders in Bathinda before taking on SAD(B) and AAP candidates. Even during his first innings in the Congress, Jeet Mohinder was never known for cordial relations within the party. Since his return to the party too, he has not been quite as active. In fact, his best shot would be to just keep the Congress vote bank intact.

Besides winning back some of its votes lost to the AAP, the SAD(B) will also try to regain votes that went to the Congress in the event that Jeet Mohinder is unable to consolidate the same.

Social media influencer-turned-politician Lakha Sidhana has also announced that he will contest from Bathinda as an Independent candidate. The former gangster who fought for the Sanyukt Samaj Morcha (SSM) was the runner-up in the Maur seat, which falls under the Bathinda parliamentary constituency, in the 2022 Assembly polls with more than 27,000 votes in his kitty. Lakha Sidhana enjoys the support of the SAD (Amritsar), several social media influencers, and some farmer union cadres. It is yet to be seen as to how his entry will make an impact.