Ranjit Singh Brahmpura, Khadoor Sahib Lok Sabha MP: Sidelined at Centre, neglected at home

Akali leader Ranjit Singh Brahmpura was known as Majhe da Jarnail (the general of Majha region), but he lost the tag with the emergence of party president Sukhbir Singh Badal’s brother-in-law Bikram Singh Majithia and got pushed to the margins.

The sidelining of the veteran leader led to neglect of his Lok Sabha constituency, Khadoor Sahib. A hardcore Panthic segment, the constituency had to suffer during the Shiromani Akali DalBharatiya Janata Party (SAD-BJP) rule in development with no major funding or project going to the area.

Hailing from Brahmpura village of Tarn Taran district, Brahmpura earned the sobriquet by winning the Naushehra Pannuan assembly segment four times and held ministries, including cooperation and rural development, in the state. After the fall of the Turs, former SAD president Jathedar Mohan Singh Tur and three-time MP Tarlochan Singh Tur, Brahmpura emerged as a force to reckon with in the region, comprising Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Gurdaspur and Pathankot.

Though he suffered defeat at the hands of Congress nominee Ramanjit Singh Sikki by 3,054 votes in the 2012 assembly elections, the Taksali (old guard) Akali leader bounced back by winning from Khadoor Sahib in 2014. He defeated AISSF activist-turned-Congress leader Harminder Singh Gill by more than one lakh votes from the constituency. Known as Tarn Taran before delimitation in 2009, it has been a bastion of the SAD for long.

Brahmpura has already announced that he will not contest the upcoming Lok Sabha election.

Led the old guard’s rebellion

Despite being a senior party leader, Brahmpura was ignored by the SAD for a ministerial berth in the Narendra Modi-led NDA government of which the SAD is a constituent. When the NDA came to power after a landslide victory, Brahmpura was expecting a ministerial berth. But the party chose Sukhbir’s wife and Bathinda MP Harsimrat Badal, who was inducted as the food processing industries minister.

Brahmpura had to remain content with the post of leader of the SAD parliamentary party in the Lok Sabha.

Earlier, the party leadership had promoted Adesh Partap Singh Kairon, the son-in-law of Akali patriarch and five-time former chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, with a key position to challenge his influence. The prolonged neglect prompted Brahmpura, a contemporary of the former CM, to revolt against the Badals.

Though one of the reasons he cited for rebelling against Sukhbir’s leadership was the damage caused by the Badal family to Sikh institutions such as Akal Takht and the SGPC by arranging Sirsa dera chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh’s apology in a blasphemy case and mishandling the sacrilege row, he also accused them of running the party like their fiefdom.

Brahmpura and other disgruntled Akalis, former MP Rattan Singh Ajnala and former Akali minister Sewa Singh Sekhwan, floated the SAD (Taksali) in December 2018 and have announced to field their candidates in the Lok Sabha elections.

Another reason for heartburn was the lack of attention from the SAD-BJP government to problems in his constituency, the largest Lok Sabha segment in Punjab. A considerable area, falling in Sultanpur Lodhi sub-division of Kapurthala district and Khadoor Sahib sub-division in Tarn Taran, is affected by seasonal floods in the Beas river. Though the foundation stone for constructing the bridge was laid and the Centre allocated its share of funds, it was not constructed in his term .

“The Badal government was responsible for not constructing the bridge. It not only did not release its share but also diverted the central funds,” Brahmpura says. Under the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana, he adopted Munda Pinda in Tarn Taran district. All his proposals to make it a model village remained just on paper. Brahmpura says his efforts failed because the Centre did not allocate any separate funds. The state also did not pay any attention.

The railway over-bridge project near Gehri Mandi village was not executed even though he got it sanctioned from the Centre.

The MP blames the Badal government’s apathy. Also, no attention was paid to farmers who have to cross the barbed fence to cultivate the land along border with Pakistan and industrial development. The one-time Goindwal Sahib industrial estate complex is lying defunct. The MP, too, was passive in the Lok Sabha and outside for most of his tenure.