SAD Jalandhar By-Poll Candidate’s Double Switch in a Day

On 2 Jul morning, SAD’s Jalandhar West by-poll candidate Surjit Kaur joined AAP in the presence of Panjab CM  Bhagwant Singh Mann (SDW Vol. 2 Issue 26, Story 6). By evening, she had come back to SAD. Kaur is currently not backed by her party SAD. Instead the rebel Akalis are funding her campaign. SAD withdrew support to Kaur as her name was finalized by a panel with SAD rebels Jagir Kaur and Gurpartap Singh Wadala as its members, both of whom gave a call for Sukhbir Singh Badal to step down from the SAD chief’s post. SAD instead decided to support Bahujan Samaj Party candidate Binder Kumar. The situation was darkly comical because Kaur’s official poll symbol remained the ‘scales,’ which is the SAD symbol, but SAD was not supporting her. When Kaur reached the poll Returning Officer’s (RO) office to withdraw her candidature, RO Alka Kalia said, ‘Surjit Kaur remains SAD candidate officially as papers could no longer be withdrawn.’ The Sikh organizations which rallied behind general election candidates Amritpal Singh and Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa in Khadoor Sahib and Faridkot, respectively, also said they would not extend support to any of the candidates in the by-poll to Jalandhar West seat on 10 Jul. The BJP Scheduled Caste (SC) wing president and retired IAS officer SR Ladhar alleged Kaur did not belong to the SC category and was ineligible to contest from the reserved seat.