Cong shines bright in Doaba

Deepkamal Kaur

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, March 11

Making a strong comeback in Doaba, the Congress bagged 15 of the 23 seats in the region. The SAD-BJP alliance managed to win six seats, while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) had to settle for two.

The Congress, which had won only six seats in Doaba in 2012 and four in 2007, fell short of its 2002 tally (17 out of 25, prior to delimitation).

The major gains for the party came from Hoshiarpur, where it won six of the seven seats, and Jalandhar, where five of the nine seats fell in its kitty. The party got two seats each from Nawanshahr and Kapurthala districts.

The victory margin of some of its leaders was pretty high. Ex-minister Avtar Henry’s son Avtar Singh Junior defeated BJP’s KD Bhandari from Jalandhar North by 32,291 votes. The other seats that the Congress won were Jalandhar West, Jalandhar Cantonment, Jalandhar Central, Kartarpur, Nawanshahr, Balachaur, Kapurthala, Sultanpur Lodhi, Hoshiarpur, Chabbewal, Dasuya, Mukerian, Sham Churasi and Urmur.

The party’s strategy of shuffling candidates on some seats at the eleventh hour didn’t work. Satnam Kainth, who was moved from Adampur to Banga, Mohinder Singh Kaypee, who was shifted from Jalandhar West to Adampur, and Jagbir Brar, who was moved from Jalandhar Cantonment to Nakodar, lost their seats.

The SAD tally came down from 11 in 2012 to five, but it was not a bad show, considering that the party was battling 10 years of anti-incumbency. The party fielded new faces from Phillaur (Baldev Khaira) and Banga (Dr Sukhwinder Sukhi); both won. Khaira won despite opposition by ex-SAD MLAs Avinash Chander and Sarwan Singh Phillaur, both of whom had left the party. Three old faces won - Ajit Singh Kohar (Shahkot), Gurpartap Wadala (Nakodar) and Pawan Tinu (Adampur).

The SAD’s alliance partner, the BJP, was able to retain only the Phagwara seat, thanks to Som Parkash. It drew a blank in Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur, where it had fielded three candidates each. Ex-ministers Manoranjan Kalia and Tikshan Sud were among the big losers. The caste card played by the BJP by elevating Hoshiarpur MP and Dalit leader Vijay Sampla as a Union Minister of State and then the state party president didn’t click.

The only saving grace for AAP in the region was Sukhpal Singh Khaira’s (ex-Congress MLA) victory from Bholath and the surprise win of Kishan Lal Rori, son of Communist leader Maha Singh Rori, from Garhshankar.

Of the Chaudhary cousins in the Congress camp, Surinder Singh won from Kartarpur, but Vikramjit Singh lost from Phillaur. The former is the son of ex-minister late Ch Jagjit Singh, while Vikramjit’s father is Jalandhar MP Chaudhary Santokh Singh.