Charanjit Channi emerges tallest Dalit leader

Deepkamal Kaur

Jalandhar, June 4

The Congress has made a huge comeback from Jalandhar (reserved) Lok Sabha seat, with former Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Channi winning with a thumping margin of 1,75,993 votes.

By polling 3,90,053 votes from the Dalit heartland of Jalandhar, Channi has once again emerged as the tallest Dalit leader in the state. Building his campaign on being a ‘saviour of the Indian Constitution’, he brought the Congress back to power on the seat which it had held for 24 years till the May 2023 bypoll. Channi has won the seat again, with the city rejecting the AAP candidate, relegating him to third position with 2,08,889 votes.

Channi also brought the curtains down on the legacy of Jalandhar’s Chaudhary family. Since the demise of two-time MP Santokh S Chaudhary, his widow Karamjit Chaudhary had contested from here last year but had lost to the AAP.

Getting the support of a huge chunk of followers from Dera Sachkhand Ballan, Channi is learnt to have found favour not just with the Ravidassia community but also with urban Sikhs, farmers and government employees. He was the only turbaned candidate from among all Ravidassia candidates in Jalandhar.

A section of Valmiki voters in certain pockets, however, voted for the BJP, which had fielded three candidates from the Valmiki/Mazhabi Sikh community in Faridkot, Fatehgarh Sahib and Khadoor Sahib.

Channi lost in two urban segments out of nine in Jalandhar, which were won by BJP candidate Sushil Rinku because of the consolidation of the urban Hindu vote consolidation. Rinku trailed behind Channi in his own home segment Jalandhar West with a margin of 1,557 votes. But he came in second outdoing AAP’s Pawan Tinu with 5,171 votes and polling 2,14,060 votes in his favour.

Channi’s aggressive campaign against Rinku and Tinu accusing them of being “party hoppers” also helped him have an edge over them.