Ajnala, March 2
Congress candidate Harpartap Singh today won the Ajnala byelection by defeating Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) candidate Amarpal Singh Bonny with a margin of 19,246 votes.
After Kapurthala and Garhshankar, Ajnala again proved to be a bumpy road for the SAD as this is the third consecutive defeat of the party in the byelections within a few months.
Out of the total 11,7,221 counted votes, the Congress candidate polled 66,661 votes while SAD candidate got 47,415 votes. The other three Independent candidates, Mr Harvinder Singh, Mr Mandeep Singh and Mr Raj Kumar polled 1,567, 585 and 990 votes, respectively.
The Congress candidate was leading in all 10 rounds of the counting held in Degree College here.
Interestingly, Mr Harpartap Singh won at almost all 14 booths where repolling was held yesterday.
The Assembly constituency was declared vacant following the election of Dr Rattan Singh, who represented it in the state Assembly as an Akali MLA, to the Lok Sabha last year.
Following the defeat of Mr Bonny, Mr Inderjit Singh Zeera, former Akali minister, sought an immediate resignation of Mr Parkash Singh Badal as the SAD President. He said the SAD was no more a ‘panthic party’ and that was why voters of Ajnala had rejected it totally.
The stakes in the byelection were so high that immediately after the polling, Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee general secretary Parminder Singh had announced that he would quit politics if Congress candidate failed to win with less than 10,000 votes.
The political observers attribute the victory of the Congress candidate to ‘hijacking of panthic agenda’ by the Congress. The appointment of Dr Manmohan Singh, Mr J.J. Singh and Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia as Prime Minister, Army chief and Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, respectively, was highlighted in various Congress rallies. Congress leaders would tell the voter that this was for the first time that three posts of Governor had been given to the Sikhs, who are a minority in the country. The participation of the Congress in various Sikh centenaries in a big way was also mentioned in the speeches of senior leaders.
In this Jat-dominated constituency, Christians and Rai Sikhs held the key and the Congress was successful in making inroads into these communities. The decision to give SC status to Rai Sikhs had come a few days before the byelection, while Mr Oscar Fernandes, Union Minister, personally held meetings with Christian priests and promised to fulfil all their demands after the elections.
