Capt bucks national trend, 5 up in Punjab

Sanjeev Singh Bariana

Tribune News Service 

Chandigarh, May 23

Withstanding the BJP wave across the country, the Congress in Punjab bagged eight of the 13 Lok Sabha seats. In the 2014 elections, too, the state had gone against the national trend in favour of the BJP and voted for four Aam Aadmi Party MPs and three of the Congress. 

  The Congress has wrested three AAP seats and two of the four held by the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). 

The BJP retained its share of two seats. However, its Amritsar nominee Hardeep Puri, Union Minister of State, Housing and Urban Affairs, was trounced by Congress’ Gurjeet Singh Aujla by nearly one lakh votes. 

But for SAD chief Sukhbir Badal and his wife  Harsimrat Kaur Badal, none of the Akali candidates could make it. Sukhbir registered a huge win in Ferozepur. He defeated Congress’ Sher Singh Ghubaya by 1.99 lakh votes. Harsimrat retained the Bathinda seat, defeating Congress’ Amrinder Singh Raja Warring by 21,000 votes.

As anticipated, film star Sunny Deol wrested the Gurdaspur seat, defeating Punjab Congress chief Sunil Jakhar, by more than 77,000 votes. Chief Minister’s wife Preneet Kaur trounced SAD’s Surjit Singh Rakhra by 1.62 lakh votes, and AAP state chief Bhagwant Mann retained the Sangrur seat.

He defeated Congress’ Kewal Dhillon by over a lakh votes.  He polled 4.12 lakh votes.

In Anandpur Sahib, Congress’ Manish Tewari wrested the seat from SAD’s Prem Singh Chandumajra with a margin of over 46,000 votes.

 In Jalandhar, Santokh Singh Chaudhary of the Congress defeated SAD’s Charanjit Singh Atwal by less than 20,000 votes. Among the other Congress winners were Jasbir Singh Gill (Dimpa) from Khadoor Sahib, Ravneet Singh Bittu from Ludhiana, Amar Singh from Fatehgarh Sahib and Mohammad Sadique from Faridkot. Som Parkash of the BJP won the Hoshiarpur (reserved) seat. 

Besides cornering the Akalis on the sacrilege issue, Capt Amarinder Singh galvanised his entire team of MLAs and top leaders to go to their respective areas and reach out to the voters. Observers see Sukhbir and Harsimrat’s victory as the beginning of revival of SAD fortunes.