Jalandhar north: Congress, BJP in direct contest here

Avneet Kaur

Jalandhar, February 15

A direct contest is on the cards between the Congress and the BJP in the Jalandhar North assembly segment, where the Congress has once again fielded sitting MLA Bawa Henry, who had won from the seat in 2017, while BJP has gone with ex-CPS and two-time MLA KD Bhandari.

As the constituency has a mixed population of Hindu, Sikh and Scheduled Caste (SC) voters, both the Congress and BJP have a stronghold here. The seat has been juggling between the BJP and the Congress since 1985. Former Congress minister Avtar Henry, father of Bawa Henry, had won from here three times (1992, 1997 and 2002), while KD Bhandari, who had been BJP’s candidate from the seat since 2007, has won from here twice (2007 and 2012).

While, PM Narendra Modi had held a rally here in support of party’s candidates and promised a new Punjab to the voters, CM Charanjit Singh Channi, too, addressed late night public meetings at Maqsudan and Saidpur in favour of Junior Henry asking the voters to elect the young MLA for the second time with thumping majority. He even promised cabinet berths to elected MLAs from Jalandhar.

Besides, with bigwigs of BJP like Amit Shah, JP Nadda, Hardeep Puri and other leaders are aggressively campaigning and making all-out efforts to win over the voters, Bhandari says he is quite confident of making a comeback.

As the SAD and BSP are contesting in an alliance this time, the seat was given to BSP, and the alliance chose to go with Kuldeep Singh Lubana, who has been previously with the Akali Dal. His wife is still a SAD councillor with the Municipal Corporation.

The AAP has fielded two-time councillor and former Congressman Dinesh Dhall from the seat. Even though he was considered close to former minister Avtar Henry, he strongly opposed the candidature of Bawa Henry from the seat, and then joined AAP in the first week of January this year. AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal and party’s CM candidate Bhagwant Mann both have campaigned for Dhall saying he has been active in local politics for a long time and is aware of voters’ issues at ground level.

Meanwhile, the SSM too has fielded a former Congressman from the seat Des Raj Jassal. He is a four-time councillor. His wife, too, was a Congress councillor from Ward No. 1. He left Congress last year after the SSM offered him the ticket from the seat. Even though his campaign is running mild, he is making all efforts to woo the voters belonging to marginal communities.

Voterspeak

• “The crime in the constituency has gone up as six murders and a number of firing incidents have been reported in the past two years. Besides, right under the nose of the police, miscreants could be seen gambling, consuming drugs and liquor near Doaba Chowk, where historical Devi Talab Temple is situated, but still no action,” said Karanveer Singh, a resident of Preet Nagar.
• “Even though the constituency houses areas like Industrial Focal Point, Focal Point Extension and Transport Nagar, there is no proper traffic management in the area. Besides, civic issues like poor sewerage system in some areas, bad roads, stray animals menace are other issues which need to be addressed,” said Ruchi Batra, a resident of Shanker Garden.

TRADITIONALLY SPEAKING

Avtar Henry, father of sitting MLA Bawa Henry, had won the seat thrice (in 1992, 1997 and 2002). In 2007 and 2012, BJP’s KD Bhandari defeated Avtar Henry by 4,900 and 1,703 votes, respectively. In 2017, Bawa defeated Bhandari by a huge margin of 32,291 votes.

Electoral strength

Total voters: 1, 84,337

Male: 97,011

Female: 87,325

Third gender: 1