The Last Word : Harsimrat Badal and Manpreet Badal

LAST WORD

This soft-spoken Badal has to find his sting
Manpreet Badal is admired for eloquence, but that hasn’t spelled votes
By Jupinderjit Singh

THE strapping Manpreet Badal (he’s 6’2”) addresses political rallies and meetings peppering his speeches with soft Urdu couplets from his repertoire of metaphors and similes picked from books as well as street wisdom. No wonder, he parted ways with the Akalis, whose manner of speech, dressing and outlook towards state and national issues never quite matched his.

For this, PPP chief Manpreet continues to be a thorn in the flesh of the Akalis, read the Badals. Unlike him, even Gurcharan Singh Tohra, the late SGPC president, had not dared to take on the Badals in a direct political fight.

Manpreet’s sister-in-law Harsimrat Kaur Badal is his competitor for the Bathinda Lok Sabha seat. Both have a contrasting style of campaigning. If Harsimrat has made the protection and development of the girl child her focus under the Nanhi Chhaan programme, 51-year-old Manpreet has made saving Punjabi youth his main slogan. His Facebook cover photo screams to save them from drugs.

Both are foot soldiers. They do not much rely on the power of the social networking media and prefer direct contact with the public. They both have Twitter and Facebook accounts, but rarely use it. A Facebook page devoted to Manpreet has 1.31 lakh-odd likes against Harsimrat’s 2.52 lakh. “I don’t get much time. And social media is so sensitive that one has to operate it oneself only,” he says.

Prolific reader

He used his height well to represent Punjab in the National Basketball Championship and now he towers in political rallies. A Doon School product, a graduate in history (honours) from St Stephen’s College and an LLB from the University of London, Manpreet’s favourite subject is history. A man of letters, he is inspired by the book “How the Steel Was Tempered”, a socialist-realist take on Russia’s civil war by Nikolai Ostrovsky.

A chat with him leaves one with knowledge of several poets, writers and their works and anecdotes. He quotes verses from the Gita, Guru Granth Sahib, Mahabharata, Bulle Shah and Communist writers with ease.

When told political analysts term his battle with the Badals as the Mahabharata of Punjab politics, he retorts: “Lord Krishna told Arjuna to fight his own relatives as they were no longer on the side of justice.”

Battle is on

“A well-read man gifted with eloquence,” is how village residents describe him. But does this admiration translate into votes? Not really. He set out on a lonely road, met supporters on the way, some deserted him while others joined him. But he knows in his heart that the struggle is his own.

The decisive battle for the Lok Sabha seat from Bathinda may make or mar him. It may wipe him off the political scene or make him a valiant warrior if he loses with a narrow margin.

For a man who admitted just over a year ago before the media that he was unable to organise rallies at religious places due to lack of funds, and was nearly written off, Manpreet has managed to hold on and stay afloat.

The Badal families have no personal dispute. They have long settled land distribution in Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan and visit each other often. Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal’s elder brother and Manpreet’s father Gurdas Badal once said Parkash visited him often and eagerly fulfilled any work he asked for. He blames their sons for the division. “Sons forced us apart,” he says.

People call it a case of sibling rivalry or perhaps different political ambitions of the sons, but Manpreet disagrees. “It is all about the preference of loyalty. For me, the country is first, state second, party third and the family last. But for others, it is reverse. For them their family comes first,” he says.

State first

He does not regret parting ways with the Akalis. “If tomorrow I face a similar situation where I have to choose the good of the nation over the family, I would not blink in choosing the nation again,” he declares.

Shaheed Bhagat is his inspiration. “I grew up in the age of green and white revolution in Punjab, the laying of canals and industrialisation. I weep today seeing the pitiable condition of the state. I watched the brain drain as Punjabis migrated to the West; the days of terrorism; and now directionless governance. I stood up to stop the descent and I suffered. But that is hardly a price to pay for trying to save one’s motherland,” he claims.

He often signs off his meetings with a Bulle Shah couplet — “Wadde kahawan, barra dukh paawan, nein wada kaha ke bhuli; wade wade rukh dig painde, je pawan haneri jhuli” (If ever I saw myself as mighty, I suffered. A storm will bring down the mightiest of trees.)

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Bathinda bahu has to keep the flock intact
Harsimrat Kaur faces a tough battle against the Cong-PPP combine

A self-confessed reluctant politician, MP Harsimrat Kaur enjoys an envious position no one in her own party — the SAD — can claim at this juncture.

Seeking re-nomination from the Bathinda Lok Sabha seat, she enjoys unflinching support of the three stalwart leaders of the party by virtue of her relationship with them — her father-in-law and Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, her husband and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and her brother-cum-Revenue Minister and Youth Akali Dal president Bikramjit Majithia.

She is the de facto Chief Minister of the Bathinda region, with the bureaucracy and police at her beck and call for the last five years. So important are her programmes that the administration moves with her cavalcade.

Glamour factor

Impeccably dressed in bright colours, with her dupatta always covering her head, 47-year-old Harsimrat enhances the glamour quotient of the party. Having studied at Loreto Convent School, Delhi, and South Delhi Polytechnic College, her heart belongs to the Majha region. She has also much fan following in Malwa as her father-in-law calls her nooh rani of the region.

Though she married Sukhbir in 1991, she made a foray into politics quite late, after the death of her mother-in-law. Since then, she has been holding the fort in her personal and professional life. Deeply religious, she recites path for days. Just before jumping into the poll campaign mode, she was busy in connection with the special Maghi path and was incommunicado.

Talking shop

A graduate in textile designing, her challenge remains playing a career woman, a wife, a daughter-in-law, a mother and a sister — all ingredients of a conflict faced by a modern woman, and hence indicative of her popularity among the fairer sex. She talks about it in any interview with the media.

After a hard-pitched battle against Raninder Singh, son of former Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh, Harsimrat now takes on a big challenge from within the Badal home — Manpreet Badal, who hopes to give her a good fight.

Back to voters

She is not just seeking votes for the Badal ‘tag’ this time. She is seeking votes for her performance as an MP and for Narendra Modi, BJP’s prime ministerial candidate. Her supporters whisper she is eyeing the External Affairs Minister portfolio held by Perneet Kaur, wife of Capt Amarinder Singh. Her Facebook cover photo shows her shaking hands with US President Barrack Obama and British Premier David Cameron, perhaps indicating those as high points of her five-year stint as MP, and not of her flagship Nanhi Chhaan programme for saving the girl child, or even a shot of the rural constituency she represents.

Her supporters drive home the point that more development will take place if she and the NDA win as biba ji (as she is commonly addressed here) is sure to get a ministry.

She has made herself the champion of women rights and issues. No interview with her is complete without the mention of how she is not spending enough time with her children Harkirat, Kaur, Gurleen Kaur and Anantbir Singh. She often receives questions with a stern look, but lightens up at the mere mention of her children. “Their exams are on. I worry about their grades,” she says.

Showing sensitivity towards women, she narrates cases of the success of the Nanhi Chhaan programme.

Out of reach

Yet she is criticised by her detractors as well as some within the party for having a stiff upper lip and being inaccessible. She stayed away from the kidnap case of a minor girl of Faridkot, drawing flak. She faces uncomfortable questions of her continuous absence from the Kabaddi World Cup after being the star host in the first edition.

Nevertheless, she has had a smooth political ride. Analysts believe she has a strong political future. She has walked the tight rope in maintaining a bridge between her brother and father-in-law, who are not on the same page. The art of keeping the family together is seen as the hallmark of a future leader who can keep the party and supporters together when the old order falls. — JS

key words Profile-Manpreet Badal, Harsimrat Kaur Badal
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2014/20140323/kal.htm#1