SAD rebels to fund Surjit Kaur’s poll campaign
Sukhbir Badal recently withdrew support, claiming Surjit’s candidature was announced “arbitrarily” by Jagir Kaur and Wadala
After the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) withdrew support from its candidate Surjit Kaur and extended support to the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) candidate for the Jalandhar West bypoll, the SAD rebel group has decided to back Kaur’s candidature.
Due to the infighting among the Akali leaders following poor show in the Lok Sabha elections, party president Sukhbir Singh Badal withdrew party’s support to the two-time municipal councillor, claiming that she belonged to the rebel group and her candidature had been arbitrarily announced by Bibi Jagir Kaur and former MLA Gurpartap Singh Wadala.
On Friday, both Jagir Kaur and Wadala reached Surjit Kaur’s residence and assured her that senior leaders of the party would campaign for her and provide financial assistance for her electioneering. Kaur will contest on SAD’s ‘scale’ symbol as the deadline for withdrawal of candidature ended on June 26.
Former SGPC president Jagir Kaur said the party had committed a major “blunder” by withdrawing support to Surjit Kaur and backing the BSP candidate. “This has lowered the morale of the grassroots-level workers not only in Jalandhar but across the state,” she said, adding that this is for the first time in the party history that SAD leaders, led by Sukhbir, will seek votes for the BSP when an Akali candidate is in the fray.
Meanwhile, Wadala said, “It is not a personal fight. We are talking only about the principles and possible changes in the party in order to strengthen it. By humiliating Surjit Kaur, the leaders behind it have further weakened the party and its prospects.”
He added that they would go door-to-door to ask people to vote for Surjit Kaur, who has shown her incapability to run her poll campaign due to financial constraints.
Not an Akali stronghold
The SAD has not contested elections from the Jalandhar West assembly for the past over two decades as the seat had been allocated to the BJP which remained in alliance with the party from 1997 till 2020. In 2022, the SAD gave this seat to the BSP with which it had a poll pact and the SAD-BSP candidate, Anil Meena, got only 4,125 votes.
In the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, SAD candidate Mohinder Singh Kaypee, which once remained his stronghold area, got only 2,623 votes.