Bathinda: From the Punjab assembly to Parliament and now back in the assembly fray, AAP has once again turned to Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer, fielding its Sangrur MP from Barnala in the upcoming assembly elections.Hayer, a two-time MLA and former sports minister, had been shifted to the Lok Sabha in 2024 to contest from Sangrur, where he won by a comfortable margin. Now, as the party prepares to retain power in Punjab, it has brought him back to the state electoral arena.Meet Hayer started his political career in 2017 assembly elections from Barnala at the age of 27 years. Contesting his first election, he defeated Kewal Singh Dhillon, then in Congress and presently state president of BJP.In 2022, he retained the Barnala seat and was inducted into the cabinet as education minister. He was later shifted to the mining portfolio and subsequently given charge of sports.After Hayer’s victory in the Lok Sabha elections, AAP lost the Barnala assembly seat in the 2024 bypoll, where it had fielded Harinder Singh as its candidate.
