Punjab: Gidderbaha leader Dimpy Dhillon joins AAP with eye on byelection

Former Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader from Gidderbaha, Hardeep Singh Dimpy Dhillon, joined the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the presence of chief minister Bhagwant Mann at a function in Muktsar on Wednesday.

A former aide of SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal, Dhillon quit the party on Sunday and had said he was open to joining the AAP.

Mann’s cabinet minister Aman Arora and Gurmeet Khudian are among those present at the event in the Gidderbaha assembly segment, which is awaiting a byelection that Dhillon hopes to contest.

After a meeting with his supporters on Monday, Dhillon said that his supporters were unanimous on the decision to join the ruling party in Punjab in the larger interest of the constituency that is “struggling for development”.

“I am definitely keen to contest the byelections. This is the reason I am considering joining the AAP. I have demands for the constituency and if I am assured of development funds for Gidderbaha, I will take a decision accordingly,” Dhillon had said on Monday.

His announcement came on a day when Sukhbir publicly appealed to him to rejoin the party. Sukhbir said he would wait for 10 days to get a reply from Dhillon before taking any decision on Gidderbaha.

A transporter and politician, Dhillon unsuccessfully contested from the politically significant seat of Gidderbaha for two consecutive times since 2017 on the SAD ticket. The Gidderbaha seat fell vacant after state Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring quit as an MLA after being elected from the Ludhiana Lok Sabha seat.

In the 2022 assembly polls, Dhillon lost by 1,349 votes in a neck-and-neck contest, while AAP candidate Pritpal Sharma finished third.

Dhillon worked with the SAD for 38 years. Before quitting the party, he reiterated that Sukhbir had kept him in the dark about his future from Gidderbaha and he sensed that Sukhbir was supporting former finance minister and cousin Manpreet Singh Badal from the segment and might even field him in the byelection.