Tarn Taran: AAP and BJP announce their candidacies but SAD and Congress delay down

Even though the top two of the state’s four major parties have announced their candidates, the Lok Sabha campaign in the mostly rural Khadoor Sahib parliamentary seat has not yet picked a winner. It is the only Lok Sabha seat that is dispersed among Majha, Malwa, and Doaba, the state’s three regions.

Transport Minister Laljit Singh Bhullar, the candidate of the governing AAP, was the first to announce for the seat. Manjit Singh Manna, well known as Mianwind, of the BJP, came next. Manjit Singh Manna is a three-time SAD MLA who defected from the Akali Dal to the BJP. In 2002 and 2007, he ran for the Khadoor Sahib Vidhan Sabha seat, and in 2012, he defeated Baba Bakala once. Both the SAD and the Congress party have not yet announced their nominees.

While SAD (Amritsar) has nominated Harpal Singh Baler as its candidate, the CPI is prepared to announce Gurdial Singh Khadoor Sahib as its nominee from this location. Several other political parties, including the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), are considering seriously fielding candidates from this area as well.

When it comes to election campaigning, the AAP has led the way up to this point since their candidate, Laljit Singh Bhullar, was included in the original list of party contenders and has conducted worker meetings in all nine Vidhan Sabha seats. Seven of the party’s nine MLAs are elected to office based on their parliamentary seat. Sultanpur Lodhi, a nearby town, and Kapurthala comprise the last two Vidhan Sabha seats. Rana Inder Partap Singh, an Independent MLA from Sultanpur Lodhi, is the son of Congress MLA Rana Gurjit Singh, who represents Kapurthala. Additionally, the AAP has additional personnel to support their electoral campaign.

The two main political parties in the region, the Congress and the SAD, have enough party cadre at the local grassroots level but have not yet announced their candidates or begun their campaigns. Five-seven percent of the people in the Khadoor Sahib Lok Sabha seat are from rural backgrounds, while forty-three percent are from urban backgrounds.

Agitating farmers are resenting BJP candidate Manjit Singh Manna, whose candidacy was announced barely ten days ago. It was illogical of him to try to appease the farmers.

The Khadoor Sahib parliamentary seat is still lacking in energy when it comes to election campaigning these days.