Amritsar, February 23
After Nawanshahr and Sunam, the crucial Majitha byelection has proved to be a hat trick for the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal and the BJP as Mr Raj Mohinder Singh Majithia, a Rajya Sabha member, registered a victory over his nearest rival, Mr Savinder Singh Kathunangal, a Congress candidate with a convincing margin of more than 17,000 votes.

After the massive victory of Mr Sukhbir Singh Badal, son of the Chief Minister, who had won the Rajya Sabha seat with a massive margin yesterday, this is the second consecutive victory of the SAD-BJP in both the byelections. While the SAD-BJP candidate, Mr Majithia, polled 51,168 votes, the Congress candidate, Mr Kathunangal, scored only 34,136 votes, thereby leaving a victory margin of 17,032 votes.

The other three candidates — Ms Kartar Kaur (748 votes), Col J.S. Bal, a Rashtriya Raksha Dal candidate (503 votes), and Mr Raghbir Singh (1206) forfeited their security deposit.

The ruling party candidate maintained his lead in all 10 rounds.

While the ruling party thanked the voters of Majitha for electing the SAD candidate with a big margin, Capt Amarinder Singh, president of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee, attributed the victory to manoeuvring of electronic voting machines. The PPCC chief said his party could not concede the defeat and hence it would move the Punjab and Haryana High Court against “tampering” of the voting machines.

Describing the Election Commission as “deaf and dumb”, the PPCC chief said the CEC did not agree the basic demand of PPCC for sending EVMs from New Delhi. He alleged the computer chip could play havoc when EVMs were in the custody of the Punjab Government. He alleged not even a single complaint out of over 100 was redressed by the commission.

The victory margin of the Majitha byelection is near to the victory of the Sunam byelection as Mr Parminder Singh Dhindsa, SAD-BJP candidate, had won the byelection on October 23 with a difference of 16,711 votes.

Though the rival Akali factions, including the Sarb Hind Shiromani Akali Dal, the Akali Dal (Amritsar), SAD (Democratic) and SAD (Panthic) had stayed away from the byelection yet Mr Darshan Singh Isapur, a working committee member of the SHSAD, and his supporters openly supported the Congress candidate.

However, an official spokesman of the Shiromani Akali Dal today said it was a “victory of clean democratic conduct over mud-slinging by the Opposition”.

While the hat trick in the byelection would strengthen the hands of Mr Badal, especially in the wake of the forthcoming general election, it would give a handle to Congress dissidents to demand for a change of the PPCC chief. Though Capt Amarinder Singh has claimed the party had fought the Majitha byelection unitedly, yet chinks within the PPCC were discernible during electioneering. The infighting within the fractured PPCC was one of the reasons for the third consecutive defeat of the party in the byelection.

The ruling SAD had taken a lead in announcing the candidate on January 29 while the Congress was late by a day. The PPCC wasted eight days in reaching a poll alliance with the CPI and the CPM. The campaigning was launched from February 4. Again, Ms Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, former Chief Minister, reached Majitha on February 9 while Mr Jagmeet Brar reached the constituency a few days before the end of campaigning. Capt Amarinder Singh had a tough time finalising the candidature of Mr Savidner Singh as Mr Ranjit Singh Kathunangal, former MLA, and other aspirants staked their claim for the ticket.

Obviously, due to infighting within the PPCC the party could not exploit factors like non-government or anti-incumbency. Despite the fact that there was negligible development of the constituency during four years of the Badal government, the Opposition failed to exploit the issue during electioneering.

Interestingly, Mr Savinder Singh Kathunangal who had contested the previous Assembly elections in 1997, as a rebel Akali candidate had got 31,195 vote and finishing third while the Congress candidate, Mr Ranjit Singh Waryam Nangal had got 19,906 votes. However when Mr Kathunangal contested the byelection as a Congress candidate he polled only 34,136 votes. This shows that some of the aspirants for the Congress ticket did not support the official candidate this time.

With the win in the byelection, Mr Raj Mohinder Singh Majitha will have to vacate his Rajya Sabha seat. A perusal of the booth-wise results, however, showed the Congress candidate had registered a convincing lead in some Hindu-dominated areas like Chawinda Devi which had witnessed large-scale migration of the minority community to safer places during the hey days of militancy.