Punjab polls: Brothers fight it out for Lambi seat
Lambi, January 28 (PTI)- They share the common wall of their ancestral house, the family name and even the village name. But in the cut and thrust of politics, a common inheritance seems to matter little when it comes to electoral politics. Punjab's three Badal brothers are locked in a triangular contest in Lambi which goes to polls on Monday.
Fighting from here is Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, also the grand patriarch of Shiromani Akali Dal and the Badal family which hails from Lambi in Badal village. Challenging the CM are his brother Gurdas Badal and cousin Mahesh Inder Singh Badal. While the former is fighting to open the political account of his son Manpreet's newly-formed People's Party of Punjab, the latter is contesting on a Congress ticket, having fought as an independent in the last assembly elections.
The fight here is essentially in the family with Parkash Singh Badal running for the fifth time in a row. And though one would enter Lambi hoping mudslinging matches to be on, the brothers are refraining from running each other down in the public. For the outgoing CM, it is his brother Gurdas who is posing the biggest challenge.
Asked how he felt about taking on his own brother whom he had served for years, Gurdas Badal told PTI, "I have always dreamt of seeing my brother in the CM's chair. But things have now slipped out of his hands. He is only a face. It is his son Sukhbir Badal, the Deputy CM, and his family who are running the show. Nothing is in my brother's control nor does he assert ... Read Full Story
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