Jalandhar West goes with AAP

Deepkamal Kaur

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Jalandhar, July 13

The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday retained the Jalandhar West Assembly seat with its candidate Mohinder Bhagat defeating BJP’s Sheetal Angural by 37,325 votes in the bypoll.

The bypoll was being seen as a litmus test for CM Bhagwant Mann following AAP’s drubbing in the Lok Sabha elections in which it could win just three of the state’s 13 seats.

While Bhagat bagged 55,246 votes, Angural, whose resignation as an AAP legislator had necessitated the bypoll, got just 17,921 votes. A relatively low-profile candidate of the Congress, Surinder Kaur, who was in the third position, polled 16,757 votes.

SAD candidate Surjit Kaur, who was disowned by her party, was in the fourth spot with 1,242 votes and BSP nominee Binder Kumar Lakha was in the fifth position with 734 votes. A total of 15 candidates were in the fray. The Shiromani Akali Dal, BSP and SAD (A) nominees and nine Independent candidates lost their security deposits.

The ruling AAP, which had secured a little over 15,000 votes from the Jalandhar West segment in the recently held Lok Sabha elections, made a huge comeback, bagging an additional 40,000 votes and decimating candidates of all other parties.

AAP’s victory was made possible by Mann leading the campaign and even renting a house in Jalandhar and moving there along with his family, his promise of giving a ministerial berth to Bhagat, his wife going door to door and the entire Cabinet camping in the segment.

While Bhagat, who had unsuccessfully contested the segment twice in 2017 and 2022 on the BJP ticket, finally made it to the Vidhan Sabha, former AAP MLA Angural’s shift to the BJP proved a political blunder for him.

Earlier in the day, Angural left the counting centre after the first three rounds, while Congress’ Surinder Kaur did not turn up. The Congress, which had been attacking party-hoppers and patting itself for giving the ticket to a grassroots worker, performed poorly. The voters of the same segment only recently gave over 44,000 votes to Charanjit Singh Channi in the Lok Sabha poll. The campaign by PCC chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, his wife Amrita Warring and LoP Partap Bajwa failed to impress the electorate.

Angural’s political gambit falls flat

• AAP’s Mohinder Bhagat, who unsuccessfully contested this seat twice on BJP ticket, tastes victory with 37K margin
• BJP’s Sheetal Angural, whose resignation as AAP MLA necessitated bypoll, fails to make cut
• Congress’ Surinder Kaur, who got backing of top party leaders, polls just over 16K votes

Will be in Jalandhar every Monday

As promised, I will be in Jalandhar every Monday, and govt will function from there that day. People of Doaba and Majha will not have to visit UT for grievances. — Bhagwant Mann, CM