Ready to contest against Harsimrat: Manpreet Badal

Peoples Party of Punjab (PPP) chief Manpreet Singh Badal today said he was ready to take on Harsimrat Kaur Badal, the sitting Shiromani Akali Dal MP from Bathinda in the forthcoming parliamentary elections.
Addressing a news conference here, Manpreet said: "I am a soldier of the party and our party is a member of Sanjha Morcha. Whatever decision they take will be binding on me."
"The Bathinda parliament seat is a prestigious one for SAD and to defeat it, opposition (parties) should field the strongest candidate possible," added the estranged cousin of Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal. Harsimrat is Sukhbir's wife.

Sanhja Morcha is an alliance between PPP and CPI.
Notably, in the nine assembly segments that make up the Bathinda parliamentary constituency, Sanhja Morcha candidates polled 1,52,729 votes as opposed to Akali candidates who secured 4,90,685 votes. Congress candidates got 4,57,397 votes.
Meanwhile, asked about talks with Congress for any future alliance or seat adjustment plan, Manpreet said: "As of now we have not had formal or informal talks with Congress, but the general mood in Punjab has been compelling us to forge an alliance or (go for) seat adjustment."

Manpreet added that they had worked on a seat adjustment plan in the recently held panchayats elections and the results had been encouraging. The focus now was on upcoming municipal elections, he said.

He called upon opposition parties to jointly contest the forthcoming municipal council elections in order to defeat the SAD-BJP alliance.
Manpreet said that PPP would contest the municipal council elections and a mass contact programme had been launched in that regard.