His bullet-proof Montero meanders through traffic bottlenecks and bumpy pathways at a dreadfully high speed. But the scary ride is not something bothering the junior Badal. He is more concerned about the non-functional e-mail and messaging mode in his Blackberry.

It has been a busy morning in meetings with party workers at his Sector 9 residence, and Deputy CM Sukhbir Badal has missed glancing through the morning newspapers. He asks his trusted loyalist, Bubby Badal, to get the fault rectified. Minutes before he reaches to address his first rally in Rajpura, the error is set right. But there’s another problem. Sukhbir says, “The font size is too small. Get it bigger. It strains my eyes when I read news clippings,” he tells Bubby. His personal assistant, Happy, by now has made sure that the junior Badal has responded to all calls he could not attend while in meetings at his residence. Sukhbir asks for the day’s schedule and is not happy at the very start. His chopper at the Chandigarh airport is cleared to take off. Sukhbir decides otherwise. “Why take the chopper for such a short journey. We’ll drive down to Rajpura. We can feel the pulse of the constituents en route,” he says.

On the way, he spends time on the likely lead constituencies in the state. The mention of Amarinder Singh suddenly excites him. He turns back and replies, “Leave it to Bathinda to decide. If our party candidate loses, let it be my defeat. If the Congress nominee loses, let it be Amarinder’s defeat. Between him and me.”

... contd.