Jalandhar, June 15
SAD’s Rajwinder Kaur Bhullar has bagged the Nurmahal Assembly seat, the results of which were declared here this afternoon.
She beat her nearest rival Gurbinder Singh Atwal of the Congress by 15,053 votes in a straight contest. Bhullar polled 50,983 votes to 35,930 polled by Atwal. A total of 92,120 votes were cast.
Contrary to the expectations that the Vienna incident would cast its shadow on the SAD prospects, the ruling alliance sailed through comfortably and surprised everyone by the impressive wining margin.
Added to this is the fact that the entire campaign had been going on in jumps and starts and that the SAD candidate was a green horn as compared to the veteran Atwal.
Political pundits are of the view that the result has shown that in the absence of the BSP candidates, a majority of the dalit voters tilted in favour of the ruling alliance. Also this segment seems to have been placated by the deft handling of the volatile situation by the government in the wake of the Vienna incident.
Another factor is that, since the seat would cease to exist by the next Assembly elections, the people decided that they would be better placed if they vote for the ruling party.
