Wake-up call for AAP in Punjab; led in just 32 Assembly segments

Ruchika M Khanna

Chandigarh, June 5

The Lok Sabha elections in Punjab should be a wake-up call for the ruling Aam Aadmi Party. Had the Punjab Vidhan Sabha elections been held now, the party, which got a thumping majority in the 2022 Assembly poll, would have been reduced to just a 32-member party in the state Assembly.

AAP had won 92 of the 117 Assembly seats in the Vidhan Sabha elections, promising “badlav”. Since the change has not been felt by the voters of the state, the party has lost in 60 of the Assembly segments it won in 2022, a perusal of the Assembly-wise performance of each party in the Lok Sabha poll has revealed.

Eight of the ministers in the AAP government have also trailed in their own Assembly segments. The party also trailed in Budhlada, the constituency of Punjab AAP working president Budh Ram. The ruling party in Punjab has scored the second position in 54 seats, and managed a vote share of 26.02 per cent.

The Congress has not only won the highest number of seats (seven) in the Lok Sabha elections in Punjab, but an Assembly-wise data analysis of the poll results, declared on Tuesday, also reveals that the party took a lead in 38 Assembly segments. Just two years ago, the party had managed to win just 18 seats. This was down from the 77 seats the party won in the 2017 Assembly poll.

Interestingly, though PPCC chief Amarinder Singh Raja Warring won the LS poll from Ludhiana, the Congress was at the third spot in his own Assembly segment of Gidderbaha, where Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa, son of Indira Gandhi’s assassin Beant Singh, got the lead.

The most interesting revelation in the data is the lead obtained by the BJP in 23 Assembly segments. Though the party scored a duck in the LS poll, it increased its vote share to 18.56 per cent. The party also bagged the second place in nine seats. The party got the lead in urban centres, besides satellite towns of Mohali and Patiala, and Bathinda, Abohar, Balluana and Ferozepur city. In the current Vidhan Sabha, the party has just two MLAs.

The SAD, which managed to win just its family borough of Bathinda, in the Lok Sabha elections, got a lead in nine Assembly segments, and was second in six. Its influence, according to the data, is restricted to just Bathinda and Ferozepur. The party has just three MLAs in the current Vidhan Sabha.