Saving grace for Cong candidate in Phillaur

Aakanksha N Bhardwaj
Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, May 23

Though Congress candidate Chaudhary Santokh Singh won the Lok Sabha seat from Jalandhar today, it was just a saving grace for him in the Phillaur Assembly constituency, from where his son Vikramjit Chaudhary was a contestant during the Assembly poll.

Today, of the 18 total rounds, the BSP was leading in 12 rounds and the fight surely remained tough in the constituency for the Congress. Chaudhary often reported to have spent a larger amount of the MPLAD funds in Phillaur, from where his son had also unsuccessfully contested.

The Congress in Phillaur got 45,001 votes while BSP candidate Balwinder Kumar bagged 43,916 votes and the margin between the two was 1,085 votes. The BSP also managed to push SAD on the third spot, with 35,818 votes. Finally, the BSP attained the second spot in Phillaur with a margin of just nearly 1,050 votes.

Funds in Phillaur

According to reports, of the Rs 16.57 crore that Jalandhar Congress MP Chaudhary Santokh Singh had spent from his discretionary Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLAD) funds, nearly Rs 3.9 crore was spent only in Phillaur in 2018.

The Rs 3.9 crore had been spent on various works such as construction of streets, verandahs of schools and cremation grounds, laying of sewerage lines and water pipes, setting up of libraries and gyms and installation of streetlights. But the results have shown that the Congress might be losing its sheen in the constituency.

BSP wins in Adampur too

Not only the BSP gave a neck-and-neck competition to the Congress in Phillaur, but in the Adampur constituency, which has a sitting MLA of the SAD, the BSP surpassed the Congress and the SAD and gathered the highest number of votes in the constituency.

BSP got 39,422 votes, while the SAD and the Congress received 30,096 and 28,695 votes, respectively, bagging second and third positions.

Balwinder Kumar said : “When I contested the Vidhan Sabha elections in 2017, I had got only 5,208 votes and now, we have given a tough competition to the SAD and the Congress. We have come up strong in the rural belt.”