No surprises, SAD fields Badal from Lambi, Sukhbir to contest Jalalabad

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) patron Parkash Singh Badal will again contest the assembly polls from the Lambi segment, in a bid to enter the Vidhan Sabha for a record 11th time.

The Shiromani Akal Dal on Thursday also announced party chief and deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal as candidate from Jalalabad, the seat he won with a highest margin in the 2012 assembly polls.

The 90-year-old warhorse and a five-time chief minister, who will spearhead the SAD-BJP poll campaign in the run up to the high-stakes February 4 election, will be pitted against Jarnail Singh of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP).

Badal, who is the oldest CM in the country, has lost only one assembly election in his six-decade long political innings.

In 1957, Badal was first elected to the Vidhan Sabha on a Congress ticket when he was 25 years old. Having won 10 assembly polls--- nine in a row---he lost once in 1962. In 1977, Badal was also elected to the Lok Sabha and became a Union agriculture minister.

The AAP has fielded Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann from Jalalabad where the Rai Sikh community is in a formidable majority.

With this, the SAD has announced 91 candidates on 94 seats the party is contesting. Its ally, the BJP, is contesting 23 seats. The SAD is yet to declare nominees for Patiala (urban), Kharar and Amritsar (South) segments.