25 nominees forfeit security deposits

Sameer Singh

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, May 25

A total of 27 candidates contested the Lok Sabha elections from the high-profile Bathinda parliamentary constituency. Of them, 25 candidates forfeited their security deposits.

Apart from the Independent candidates and lesser known new entrant parties, AAP candidate Prof Baljinder Kaur and Punjab Ekta Party (PEP) chief Sukhpal Singh Khaira also forfeited their security deposits.

While AAP’s Baljinder Kaur managed to garner 1,34,398 votes (11.19 %), Khaira bagged 38,199 votes (3.18 %).

Political analysts believe that the maximum number of candidates forfeited their security deposits due to a neck-to-neck contest between the candidates of two main traditional parties, who bagged a large chunk of the total vote share.

As per the figures, of the total 12,00,810 polled votes in the constituency, SAD candidate Harsimrat Badal and Congress nominee Amrinder Singh Raja Warring jointly bagged 9,63,876 votes. The remaining 2,36,934 votes were fetched by 25 other candidates.

To save the security deposit that was Rs25,000 for the general category candidates and Rs12,500 for the scheduled category candidates, a nominee was required to secure one-sixth (16.67 %) of the total votes polled in the constituency. With that count, a candidate was required to get minimum 2,00,135 votes in order to save his/her security deposit.

Apart from the two main contenders, none of the other 25 candidates could come near to that figure. Only AAP candidate Prof Baljinder Kaur could manage to get to a respectable figure of 1,34,398 votes.

Talking to Bathinda Tribune, Ravi Shankar, professor of political science, Punjabi University, Maur campus, said, “The trend of maximum forfeiture of security deposits can be attributed to the constant shifting stance of voters. In the 2012 Assembly elections, people inclined towards the People’s Party of Punjab and in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, the voter had showed faith in AAP. This time, a majority of the voters have again reposed their faith in two major political parties.”

Prof Shankar added, “Marred by defections, this time AAP faltered on capitalising the support it garnered in the 2014 Lok Sabha elections. The voters’ tilt towards the traditional parties in this Lok Sabha elections is justifiable in the sense that they did not want to cast their vote (or waste it) to a party that is not going to form the government.”