Yet another drubbing for Akali Dal

Tribune News Service

Jupinderjit Singh

Chandigarh, May 13

The SAD suffered a drubbing in the Jalandhar bypoll. The Akali Dal-BSP candidate, Dr Sukhwinder Sukhi, polled 1,58,354 votes and stood third.

In the 2019 General Election, SAD candidate Charanjit Singh Atwal had polled 3,66,221 votes and lost to the Congress nominee by only 19,491 votes.

To make matters worse, this is the third consecutive electoral defeat of the SAD since the 2022 Assembly elections when the party managed to win only three seats of the 117. It finished fifth in the Sangrur bypoll last year.

The SAD has reportedly failed to regain the trust of the voters over incidents of sacrilege and drug-politician-police nexus, besides the sand and transport mafia, which allegedly mushroomed from 2007 to 2017.

Though the Akali Dal’s campaign was hit by the demise of its patriarch Parkash Singh Badal, the party failed to get sympathy vote and even lost the cadre vote.

In 2020, the SAD broke alliance with the BJP over the contentious farm laws, which has adversely affected the prospects of both parties. So far, the Akali Dal has failed to produce the results it expected with its new alliance partner BSP.

Moreover, letting go former Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal and Inder Iqbal Atwal cost the party dear. The Akalis played the Panthic card by coming in support of youths who were booked for supporting pro-Khalistan activist Amritpal Singh following a crackdown on them in March, but the decision didn’t worked in its favour.

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