Sidhu campaigns in Amritsar. Telegraph picture

Amritsar, Feb. 10: One calls himself a lion, out to devour the lamb.

Rubbish, retorts the “lamb”. “He is just a dog.”

If you are steeling yourself for a blood-curdling roar and a sudden leap, relax. It’s just an election campaign — only that it’s turning out to be quite beastly, literally.

Cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu of the BJP and Surinder Singla, finance minister of Congress-ruled Punjab, have declared war against each other in a no-holds-barred battle for the holy city.

It all started when Sidhu roared at an election rally that the contest in Amritsar was between a “lion” and a “lamb”, and that he would “devour the lamb”.

But the lamb is in no mood to be devoured without a bleat, er, fight.

“He is a bhonkhu (dog) who only barks,” Singla growls at rally after rally. “What has Amritsar gained from him (Sidhu) as MP?”

Singla has got his American daughter-in-law Toria Jamel — or “TJ” — to canvass for him. “My father-in-law has given Punjab a new direction. Sidhu has earned a bad name for the state for his conviction in a murder case,” she says, referring to the road-rage case that cost the former cricketer his seat in Parliament.

“Do you want to be represented by a progressive candidate or one who will be getting in and out of jail each time the court tells him to do so?” TJ goes on, her 10-month-old son in tow. “Aap mere sasurji ko vote dijiye, please. Amritsar hamara ghar hai.”

TJ has been gaining admirers by the hundreds. “She seems dedicated. But Sidhu is still our darling,” says Rajji, a staunch supporter of the BJP candidate whose one-liners — or Sidhuisms — on television have made him a household name.

“He is also handsome,” she adds after a pause.

While Singla is eating into Sidhu’s vote bank in urban localities, rural areas continue to remain firmly with the BJP.

At Leharka, Tallisaab, Chaminda Devi, Majitha, Pakhalpura and dozens of villages and hamlets, crowds are pouring into his meetings to hear his short speeches that begin and end with quotes from the Guru Granth Sahib that Sidhu knows by heart.

Many villagers say Sidhu speaks their language. “We have a candidate who speaks and behaves like any of us. Singla is an outsider who knows nothing about the problems of the holy city,” says Gurcharan, a resident of Majitha.

“Why blame Sidhu for doing nothing for the city? As finance minister of the state, what has Singla given? Industry is dead here. Land prices are the highest in the country. The only ones who have gained from the Amarinder Singh government are builders and industrialists. The aam aadmi (common man) is reeling under price rise and corruption never seen before.”

While Sidhu remains the favourite for the February 13 poll, Singla, who gave up the Bhatinda Assembly seat before the Supreme Court stayed Sidhu’s conviction, thinks his rival is not much better than a “joker”.

“I am not a TV star. I am an economist. I know what is good for the state. Sidhu is a joker whose stint in the circus has come to an end,” he says.

Nonsense, the “lion” roars back. “I am not a sleeping pill.”

Singla is yet to come up with a matching dose.