Poor show: BJP candidates get votes in single digit in most wards

Deepkamal Kaur
Tribune News Service
Jalandhar, February 17

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidates performed so dismally that many of them finished on a single digit in most of the wards.

Sample this: In Ward No.1 of Tanda Municipal Council, falling in Hoshiarpur district, BJP candidate Rajni polled only four of 890 votes.

NOTA got more preference with six votes in this ward. The situation wasn’t better off in other wards of Tanda, where Ward No. 4 candidate Gurpreet Singh polled 12 votes; Ward No. 6 candidate Ankur Malhotra 17; Ward No. 7 candidate Jaswinder Kaur three; Ward No. 4 candidate Baljit Singh four; Ward No.9 candidate Amandeep Singh eight and Ward No.12 candidate Sanjiv Kumar polled just four votes (same as NOTA).

This was not the lone case, where most BJP candidates were seen finishing on a single or double digit vote tally.

Now sample this: In Kapurthala Municipal Corporation elections, BJP candidate from Ward No. 10 could poll only 19 votes of total 1,598 votes.

In Alawalpur MC too, Ward No. 6 candidate Jogi polled just two votes. In Ward Nos. 1 and 4 of adjoining Adampur council, BJP candidates Rajni and Bikram polled only nine votes. In Nakodar’s Ward No. 1, BJP candidate Manjit Kaur polled only eight votes, Ward No. 11 candidate Sumeer Kumar polled five and Ward No. 12 candidate Malkiat Singh nine votes.

In Jalandhar district municipal council, where 17 of 110 wards were contested by the BJP, it got none.

Even in Nakodar municipal council of Jalandhar, where BJP contested on seven wards, it lost all. The only ward in Jalandhar that the party has won is of Nurmahal. SAD MLA Nakodar Gurpartap Wadala says: “The winning BJP candidate from Nurmahal is the wife of Vinod Kumar Jassal, former vice-president of the municipal council. She was not interested in taking the BJP symbol, but was imposed upon by the party. She has won on her personal links and on the basis of her work in the past. She in all probability will announce to quit from the BJP in a few days. I count her as my candidate, as I was backing her. With her being on board and six other Independent winners, whom I supported, I should be able to get my team in power in the 13-ward council.”

Ex-BJP minister Manoranjan Kalia, when contacted, said: “The local body poll result does not reflect the will of the masses. Unfair means have been used by the ruling party. For instance, on the polling day, a supplementary voter list without photographs was released in Bathinda. In Pathankot, our voters were shunted out of the polling booth.”

About Jalandhar seats, he said: “We had never fought on so many seats, but we still attempted it this time.” For Hoshiarpur, he said: “I think it was anti-incumbency which became the main reason. Some suppressive means were also used by the ruling Congress.”

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