Nothing official about it, yet, but Harsimrat Badal has already hit the ground running in Bathinda

A former Union minister and the winner the past three times from Bathinda, Harsimrat adds: “I am always there while seasonal frogs show up only during election time.”

Harsimrat’s daily itinerary seems as packed as an official candidate’s. On Sunday, she participated in various events held on the occasion of Ambedkar Jayanti in different locations across the constituency. On Monday, she held a series of public meetings throughout the day.

While in 2009, Harsimrat trumped then senior Congress leader Amarinder Singh’s son Raninder Singh by a margin of over 1 lakh votes, she defeated her brother-in-law Manpreet Singh Badal, fighting on a Congress ticket, five years later. In 2019, she defeated current Punjab Congress chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring.

Punjab votes in one go on June 1, the final phase of the Lok Sabha polls, and Bathinda seems headed for a four-cornered contest. If fielded, Harsimrat will be up against Congress’s Jeet Mohinder Singh Sidhu, who returned to the party from the SAD in November last year and state agriculture minister Gurmeet Singh Khudian of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP). Though the BJP is yet to officially announce its nominee, insiders said former IAS officer Parampal Kaur Sidhu, who recently quit as a civil servant to join the party with her husband, will be its candidate.

However, Congress sources claim admit its candidate is facing internal resistance as the party preferred Sidhu over Warring’s wife, Amrita. “We seem to be out of the contest (for Bathinda) now. Amrita was replaced despite having a high chance of winning. It seems like the Congress is trying to please the AAP and SAD by declaring a weak candidate,” a senior leader said.

On why the SAD has not yet formally announced her candidature, Harsimrat says the decision lies with party president Sukhbir Singh Badal, who will choose an appropriate time to declare the nominees.

She dismisses competition from the BJP’s probable candidate. “In a democracy, everyone has the right to contest polls. When someone does not see eye-to-eye with their parents, how can they convince people to be with them?” she says, in a reference to the fact that Parampal is the daughter-in-law of SAD leader and former Punjab minister Sikander Singh Maluka.

Claiming that the constituency has seen a sea change since she became an MP from Bathinda for the first time in 2009, Harsimrat says: “Be it the network of roads, AIIMS or central university, my political rivals have nothing to show.”

She accuses the BJP of trying to “steal” the credit for her work. “Since 2020, they have been meteing out step-motherly treatment to Punjab. While the SAD is the voice of Punjabis in Parliament, parties of Delhi (AAP and Congress) just obey orders of their bosses,” she says.