SUNAM, Oct 3 — Mr Parminder Singh Dhindsa, candidate of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and son of Mr Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, was today declared elected by a margin of 16711 votes to the Sunam assembly seat, the byelection for which was held on September 29.

Mr Dhindsa defeated his nearest rival Mrs Parmeswari Devi, Congress by polling 49, 007 votes. Mrs Parmeswari Devi got 32,296 votes.

Barring Mr Parminder Singh Dhindsa and Mrs Parmeswari, widow of Bhagwan Dass Arora, Congress MLA from Sunam, all the remaining 11 candidates, including Prof Prem Singh Chandumajra, candidate of the ‘Sanjha Morcha’ and general secretary of the Sarb Hind Shiromani Akali Dal (SHSAD); Prof Sukhjinder Singh of the SAD (Amritsar) and Mr Sampuran Singh of the CPI lost their security deposits.

The Congress, the SHSAD, and the SAD (A) boycotted the counting of votes after completion of the sixth round alleging that the electronic voting machines (EVMs) had been tampered with as there were no signatures of presiding officers on the slips of the seals tagged with some EVMs and the seals were not intact on some of the EVMs.

At least on two occasions counting was disrupted for 15 minutes following protests by Congress and SHSAD workers inside the counting hall. They also raised slogans against the Badal government for “rigging” the byelection. The authorities had to call in the police to prevent any untoward incident.

Capt Amarinder Singh, President of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC), and Prof Prem Singh Chandumajra, candidate of the ‘Sanjha Morcha’ demanded repolling with ballot papers instead of EVMs, saying they had no faith in the latter.

Following a boycott of the counting, workers of the Congress, the SHSAD and the SAD (A) left the counting centre and headed towards their respective election offices, raising anti-government slogans as they went.

Mr Praneet Bhardwaj, Returning Officer, and Prof Prem Singh Chandumajra exchanged hot words at one point over an EVM seal. On another occasion, Capt Amarinder Singh was seen inspecting green paper seals which had been removed from EVMs outside the counting hall. The ARO was asked to bring back the seals from Capt Amarinder Singh. A security officer rushed towards Capt Amarinder Singh and virtually snatched the paper seals back.

While the Congress candidate secured a lead over the SAD candidate in the fifth round by a margin of 441 votes, the SAD candidate led in the remaining ten rounds.

Detailed results: Total votes polled-97497;

Mr Parminder Singh Dhindsa (SAD)-49007.

Mrs Parmeswari Devi (Congress)-32296.

Prof Prem Singh Chandumajra (Sanjha Morcha)-7892.

Prof Sukhjinder Singh (SAD-A)-2842.

Mr Sampuran Singh (CPI)-1235.

Mr Kartar Singh (RPI)-615.

Ms Surinder Kaur (Ind)-257.

Mr Hakam Singh (Ind)-298.

Mr Krishan Lal (Ind)-272.

Mr Parveen Kumar (Ind)-627.

Mr Manjit Singh (Ind)-541.

Mr Manohar Lal (Ind)-446.

Mr Lajpat Rai (Ind)-1169. Invalid — 1209.

Talking to mediapersons, Capt Amarinder Singh, president of the PPCC, said “we do not accept the result of this byelection as a defeat for the Congress. We have won because people are with us. We have lost this byelection due to EVMs which seem to be tampered”.

Capt Amarinder Singh said the Election Commission should discard the EVMs as had been done in countries like UK and Germany. These countries had readopted hand stamping of ballot papers, he said.

Prof Prem Singh Chandumajra said the EVMs had become a mockery as the EVMs were either tampered with or replaced. He said he had earlier brought this to the notice of the Poll Observer but nothing was done.

NEW DELHI, Oct 3 — Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal has emerged stronger and as the rallying point in the faction-ridden Shiromani Akali Dal by wresting the Sunam Assembly seat from the Congress.

Mr Badal’s arch rival G.S. Tohra had to bite the dust and his machinations along with the Congress and Left parties to split the SAD has come unstuck.

Mr Tohra, who succeeded in requisitioning the support of former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar and Samajwadi Party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav to undertake some high power campaigning for his nominee P.S. Chandumajra, has been left to cool his heels.

SAD and Bharatiya Janata Party sources here contend that Mr Badal has succeeded in great measure in quelling dissidence to his leadership and the Tohra factor is bound to recede to the background. Mr Tohra is on the downslide and his influence among legislators and parliamentarians from Punjab has taken a severe beating.

The Sunam result which witnessed the triumph of SAD’s Parminder Singh, the son of Union Mines Minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, by a huge margin of nearly 17000 votes brings to the fore the fact that divisive Akali Dal politics has been rejected by the electorate in Punjab.

It is acknowledged by discriminating leaders in all political parties in the fray in the Sunam Assembly election that Mr Badal has consolidated his position. The Punjab Chief Minister has rejected suggestions to go in for a snap Assembly poll by taking advantage of the prevailing positive environment for his SAD.

Feelers had been sent to the BJP’s top leadership that Mr Badal is losing support in the SAD. As allies, it was argued by the Chief Minister’s critics that if the BJP gave a covert signal, they could get into the act of splitting the SAD and dethroning Mr Badal.

On its part, the BJP leadership ignored these machinations. It refused to take the bait. The party remained firm that there is no question of disturbing the applecart with Mr Badal’s SAD. The BJP-SAD relationship is proceeding smoothly and the saffron brigade has assiduously refrained from queering the pitch for Mr Badal.

Sources close to Mr Badal emphasised that the Chief Minister is against advancing the Assembly elections in Punjab scheduled for January 2002. Clearly, Mr Badal wants to strengthen the SAD organisation and more importantly shore up the delicate financial situation of the sensitive border state. Such a course of action in Mr Badal’s view will ensure the longevity of his government.

The faction-ridden Congress has been given yet another wake-up call to put its house in order. The party under Sonia Gandhi’s stewardship has to undertake some serious introspection of its second successive defeat in Punjab. After losing the Nawanshahr Assembly seat which has been a Congress bastion, they suffered another defeat at Sunam now. As is the party’s bane, the disgruntled leaders in Punjab contributed their bit in ensuring the defeat of their official nominee Parmeshwari Devi.

CHANDIGARH, Oct 3 — The Punjab Chief Minister, Mr Parkash Singh Badal, seems to have “perfected” the art of winning byelections. He had tried a “formula” in the Nawanshahr byelection successfully and repeated it in the Sunam byelection to register another victory. Earlier in the Adampur byelection, Mr Badal had to cut a sorry figure as his party lost in that constituency.

The Shiromani Akali Dal’s candidate, Mr Parminder Singh Dhindsa, has won the Sunam poll with an impressive margin of over 16,700 votes.

The “formula” is very simple. Hold “sangat darshan” well before the byelection is announced, give grants and other benefits to people and panchayats in the constituency and get votes. Aggressive campaigning is another feature which Mr Badal has added to the character of byelections. He made all his ministers and chairpersons of boards and corporations stay in the Sunam constituency right from the word go.

As Mr Badal was well aware of the importance of this byelection, he had started frequenting the constituency well before the announcement of the poll and did not depend on the second line of leadership for campaigning. It was an election in which big political stakes were involved for both Mr Badal and the Punjab Pradesh Congress president, Capt Amarinder Singh.

The win in the Sunam constituency has refuelled the possibility of a mid-term poll in the state. Political observers say that Mr Badal can opt for the mid-term poll after trying the “formula” which he applied in Nawanshahr and Sunam in the entire state. He is now in a position to mount a fresh attack on his Akali opponents and the Congress, which is an incohesive outfit in the state. There is a possibility of the intensification of the tug of war between various factions of the Congress in the state after the “humiliating” defeat in the Sunam constituency. All top Congress leaders of the state were fully involved in the electioneering in Sunam and no one can put the blame on the other for the defeat.

Sangrur district is known for factionalism in the SAD. And this was very much on display. After a lot of persuasion by Mr Badal and Mr Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa, the senior Akali leader, Mr Surjit Singh Barnala, joined the campaigning at the fag end.

By winning the Sunam poll, Mr Badal has marginalised his main political opponents like Mr Gurcharan Singh Tohra and Mr Simranjit Singh Mann. Mr Tohra’s party candidate, Mr Prem Singh Chandumajra, who had the support of at least nine political outfits, including the CPM, which was a national party till last week, got only 7,890 votes. The CPI put up a very poor performance as its candidate got only 1,235 votes. The candidate of Mr Simranjit Singh’s party, Prof Sukhjinder Singh, got fewer than 3,000 votes.

With his victory, Mr Badal has got enormous political relief. This was clear from the statement issued on his behalf by his party’s secretary, Mr Kirpal Singh Badungar, here this evening. In the statement, Mr Badal said that the SAD candidate’s victory in the Sunam poll was a categoric vindication of the policies, programmes and performance of the ruling SAD-BJP-Bahujan Samaj Morcha combine and the outright rejection of a handful of “anti-Punjabi, opportunistic and unprincipled political groups which joined hands for pursuing their narrow vested interests”.

Saying that he had been “overwhelmed and moved by the trust reposed by people in electing the SAD candidate, Mr Badal talked about the “unending treacherous conduct of various Sikh leaders, who joined hands with the Indian National Congress and have never lost any opportunity to stab the SAD in the back”. He said they had once again been shown their place by people of the state”. The harsh language used in the statement against Akali leaders (obviously Mr Tohra and others) indicates that Mr Badal will adopt a tough line against Mr Tohra, Mr Ravi Inder Singh and a group of MLAs supporting these leaders.