Bhagwant Singh Mann – Illustration: Suvajit Dey / The Indian Express
By Manraj Grewal Sharma | The Indian Express | Punjab |
He calls his party’s quest for power “Punjab nu Punjab banaan di ladai (The battle to regain the real Punjab),” swears by Shaheed Bhagat Singh, wears the freedom fighter’s trademark ‘basanti’ (yellow) turban and usually rallies the crowds with ‘inquilab zindabad’. Meet Bhagwant Singh Mann, 48, a former comedian who’s covered the momentous journey from being a political novice to the CM face of Aam Aadmi Party Party in less than 11 years. With the AAP set to sweep the elections in the state, Mann, who is leading in his constituency of Dhuri, is all set to be AAP’s second chief minister after Arvind Kejriwal in Delhi.
The party declared him its CM face on January 19, barely a month before the elections after a phone-in poll which it claimed received 2.15 million responses with over 93 percent voting for Mann.
The two-time parliamentarian from Sangrur, who fought this assembly election from one of its segments of Dhuri, is no stranger to fandom. Born into the family of a schoolteacher at Satoj village in Sangrur, Mann had his first brush with fame at 18 when he released his maiden audio cassette while in B.Com second year at Shaheed Udham Singh Government College, Sunam. A master of social and political satire, he was soon the undisputed king of comedy in the state with long-running television shows such as Jugnu Mast Mast.
His career in comedy was at its peak when he quit it to join People’s Party of Punjab, an experiment in clean politics by Manpreet Singh Badal, a nephew of Akali patriarch and five-time chief minister Parkash S Badal, in 2011. But his first jab at elections in 2012 assembly polls from Lehragagga, a pocket borough of former chief minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, proved to be a non-starter. When Badal merged his party with Congress before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Mann refused to go along, deciding instead to accept the invitation of AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal. The rest, as they say, is history. Mann won the Sangrur LS seat by a record margin of over 2 lakh votes, slaying veteran Akali leader SS Dhindsa.
Read the full story, ‘Journey of Bhagwant Mann: From stand up comedian to Punjab’s next CM’ (The Indian Express, 10 March 2022), here.
RELATED STORY:
AAP all set to break Akali Dal – Congress long stranglehold over Punjab (Asia Samachar, 10 March 2022)
ASIA SAMACHAR is an online newspaper for Sikhs / Punjabis in Southeast Asia and beyond.Facebook | WhatsApp +6017-335-1399 | Email: editor@asiasamachar.com | Twitter | Instagram | Obituary announcements, click here
