Field wide open as hockey legend takes on party hopper

Rajeev Bhaskar, Hindustan Times

SAD candidate and former India hockey captain Pargat Singh greets voters while campaigning in Jalandhar Cantonment constituency. Sikander Singh Chopra/HT
The Jalandhar Cantonment assembly segment, once represented by former chief minister Beant Singh, was earlier a Congress stronghold.

This time it is set to witness a direct contest between Congress nominee and former Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) MLA Jagbir Singh Brar, 48, and hockey Olympian Pargat Singh, 46, a novice in electoral politics fielded by the ruling SAD to retain the seat.

Brar, who was the first ever SAD candidate to win the traditional Congress seat, is now trying hard to get back the seat for the Congress.

The SAD zeroed in on the hockey legend after Brar turned rebel to first join the People’s Party of Punjab (PPP).

Both candidates are former government officers — while Brar was a block development officer before entering politics, Pargat, who was director (sports), Punjab, resigned a day after announcement of his candidature by the party.

Brar, once a confidant of former finance minister Manpreet Badal, became a SAD rebel and joined Manpreet’s PPP as senior vice-president, but later shifted loyalties to the Congress.

Beant Singh, the former Punjab chief minister who was assassinated in 1995, lent prestige to the constituency. In 1997, the assembly segment was represented by Beant Singh’s son Tej Parkash Singh, and then by his daughter Gurkanwal Kaur, who won the seat in 2002.

Brar defeated Gurkanwal in 2007 by a margin of 16,984 votes to snatch the seat from the Congress.