All the political parties in Punjab have started preparing for the upcoming assembly elections. Meanwhile, in a big blow to its old ally Shiromani Akali Dal, Bharatiya Janata Party included former CM Parkash Singh Badal's cousin Bhupinder Singh Dhillon in the party. Major Bhupindap Singh Dhillon has served in the army and Haryana CM Nayab Singh Saini himself got him party membership. Major Bhupinder Singh Dhillon has been a close aide of the former Punjab CM and will now do politics against his family. He is not the only one who has come out against his own brother's party. Before him, there are leaders in all the parties who are doing politics against their brother in the opposition party.
This is not the first time in the Badal family that family members will do politics against each other. Before this, Manpreet Badal, son of Prakash Singh Badal's real brother Gurdas Singh Badal, has also openly come into the field against his cousin Sukhbir Badal. Due to political differences, he left Akali Dal in 2010. After this he formed his own separate party. In 2012, the situation was such that Gurdas Badal contested the assembly elections from Lambi against his elder brother Prakash Singh Badal. Manpreet Badal changed party but never came with his brother Sukhbir. Now he is in Bharatiya Janata Party.
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Bhagwant Mann's brother
Bhagwant Mann's cousin has also joined his rival Bharatiya Janata Party a few days ago. Bhagwant Mann and his brother Gyan Singh Mann started politics with People's Party of Punjab and then with Aam Aadmi Party but now both are in different parties. In May 2026, Gyan Singh Mann joined the BJP and raised questions on the policies of the AAP government, alleging that the party had deviated from its core policies.
brother and sister become rivals
Malerkotla is a famous example of direct electoral competition between brother and sister in Punjab politics. In the 2017 assembly elections, Congress fielded former MLA Rajia Sultana, while Aam Aadmi Party fielded her brother Mohammad Arshad Dali. Both brother and sister became candidates from different parties on the same seat. During the election campaign, the long standing family differences between the two were also in the news. In the contest, Razia Sultana got 58,982 votes and defeated SAD's Mohammad Owais by 12,702 votes, while Arshad Dali stood third with 17,635 votes.
Bajwa brothers living together but parties separate
Veteran Punjab Congress leader and Leader of Opposition Pratap Singh Bajwa and his younger brother Fateh Jung Singh Bajwa are also doing politics from different parties. Qadian assembly seat was the traditional seat of his family but later this seat became a cause of dispute among the family. In 2012, Congress gave ticket to Pratap Singh Bajwa's wife Charanjit Kaur Bajwa from Qadian, which angered Fateh Jung. Later in 2017, Fateh Jung became Congress MLA from this seat but later Pratap Singh Bajwa expressed his desire to contest elections from this seat. After this Fateh Jang Singh Bajwa joined BJP and contested elections from Batala seat of Gurdaspur but he lost.
An interesting story about these two brothers is that both of them are neighbors of each other in their ancestral house in Gurdaspur. The houses of both the brothers are at the same place where the ground floor is the house of Pratap Singh Bajwa and the upper floor is the house of Fateh Jung Singh Bajwa. Aam Aadmi Party also taunts both of them many times. Bhagwant Mann said that if Pratap Singh Bajwa ever accidentally climbs a few stairs, he will join BJP.
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many other names
There are many stories of political battles within the same family in Punjab politics. In 2017, his nephew Deepinder Randhawa stood against senior Congress leader Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa as Aam Aadmi Party candidate in Dera Baba Nanak. Apart from this, power struggle has been seen in many political families. In the upcoming assembly elections also, members of many families can be seen fighting among themselves.