Jalandhar, June 22
In a major jolt to the ruling combine, the Congress candidate emerged victorious in the MC byelection of ward number 41 here today.

The Congress candidate, Iqbal Masih Gill, defeated his nearest rival, BJP candidate and widow of the former candidate, Satwant Takhar, with a narrow margin of 96 votes. The defeat is being scene as a major loss to the image of the BJP that is often considered as the urban face of the SAD.

There were 9,281 total voters in the area, primarily including Basti Bawa Khel, Raj Nagar, New Raj Nagar, Katraian Mohalla, Madhuban Colony, Kabir Vihar, Gautam Nagar and New Gautam Nagar, but 5,285 votes were polled today.

Gill polled 2,610 votes, while Satwant Takhar got 2,514 votes.

The post had fallen vacant due to the death of two-time BJP councillor Harbhajan Takhar sometime back. The party had then given the ticket to his widow hoping that the sympathy votes would help them win the seat but it didn’t work.

The result of the MC bypoll has clearly left the BJP minister Manoranjan Kalia red-faced.

Considered to be the most powerful party man in the alliance government, the local bodies minister has failed to procure a victory for the party candidate in the local government elections in a ward falling in his own constituency. The Congress candidate Iqbal Gill managed a win even as Kalia himself had been taking rounds of the ward and canvassing for the BJP candidate Satwant Takhar for the past few days.

But Kalia’s arch opponent Tejinder Bittu, who had lost against him on Congress ticket in the assembly elections, left no stone unturned to regain the lost ground and bring a defeat for Kalia’s candidate. A clear-cut battle between the two had been on in the ward with the elections becoming a prestige issue. The entire MC machinery was deployed in the ward. Safai workers from other areas too had been put on duty in the ward ensuring the best civic facilities in the past few days.

As desperate measures, development works too had been clearly gathering pace in the ward to earn the goodwill of the residents there.

The BJP mayor, Rakesh Rathour, had also addressed public rallies in the ward but all efforts seemed to have gone in vain. Kalia, it is learnt, was more confident of the victory than Bittu. But the result has made Bittu feel much elated today as he said, “I consider the elections as the first trial between me and him after the assembly elections. It is a mockery for the man who has been projecting himself for the post of deputy chief minister to have lost a ward bypoll.

“The result is not the people’s verdict against the candidate but against Kalia, who, rather than being a people’s man, has been avoiding them all the time. What worse could he have expected? A BJP seat has fallen into Congress’s kitty when BJP men are holding the posts of local bodies minister and even that of a mayor,” Bittu added. Even as Kalia did not attend the phone calls, the newly appointed co-convener of BJP media cell, Rajat Kumar Mahindru said, “It has been disheartening for the party that a seat which we had won just sometime back has gone to the Congress. The party will take up the matter and discuss the various factors at length”.

He opined that the ward result is often associated with candidate’s personal effort. “I think it is wrong for anyone to say that it is Kalia ji’s defeat,” he said.

Ramesh Sharma, BJP circle president of the area, gave a cover up statement. “The election day today coincided with the cremation of a BJP worker from the ward. Many BJP workers and their families had gone for the last rites and they were surely tired when they came back.” “While all BJP workers have cast their votes, their families perhaps did not turn up because of hot weather and exhaustion. Had they come, we would have surely managed to retain the seat. Since the deceased worker was a Sikh man and the candidate was also Sikh, I am sure that the votes would have come in our favour,” he said.

The political standing of the local bodies minister had earlier too seemed to be in complete doldrums especially after the rejection of the proposal to nominate his right hand man for the mayor’s post in his hometown.

Kalia had wanted the district secretary of the BJP and his yes man, Ravi Mahendru, to be taken for the mayor’s post but Navjot Singh Sidhu managed to get the seat for Rakesh Rathour. Kalia had faced humiliation even when none of the three candidates he had openly favoured in MC polls managed to win the seats for his party.

Jalandhar, June 22
After godmen it’s now a godwoman who has duped several gullible persons of Rs 1.11 crore. Parading three such families in front of media here today, Lok Bhalai Party chief Balwant Singh Ramoowalia said Jaswinder Kaur of Sohal Khalsa village runs a dera and claims to possess supernatural powers. She also forces her followers to address her as Baba Jaswinder Singh.

Narrating his tale of woes, Joginder Singh of Mothanwali village in Kapurthala, said his son had gone missing for the past many months. “Some of my relatives forced me to seek her blessings. When I went to her she told me to pray at special sessions for the next few months in order to find my son. She earned my trust first and then asked me to migrate to Canada where her son’s in-laws were residing,” he added.

Joginder Singh said the godwoman told him that she would make all arrangements for his stay and ensured that he and his wife would get a monthly pension of Rs 80,000.

“I was so smitten by the offer that I transferred my one acre land worth Rs 1 crore to Jaswinder and her son’s name. It has been three years now, she neither sent me abroad nor told me about my son,” he lamented. Since the land was Joginder’s only source of income, he has been forced to do an odd job to keep hearth fires burning.

His daughter Charanjit revealed that she too started going to Jaswinder’s dera in the footsteps of her father. “The godwoman took Rs 9 lakh from me and promised to send my family to Canada,” she alleged, adding that Jaswinder did not keep her promise. “I was fortunate than my father because I did not part with my land on the advice of my relatives but arranged the money through other channels,” she added.

Similarly, Manjit Kaur of Talwara village near Sidhwan Bet, said she had been duped of Rs 2 lakh by the godwoman on the pretext of sending her son to Canada. She said, “I took a loan of Rs 1 lakh from a moneylender and arranged the rest from my daughter.”

She has not been able to repay the loan and repeated pleas to the accused to return the money have only elicited threats and abuses, Manjit alleged. Appealing such victims to contact him, Ramoowalia said the police should create a separate cell to tackle such crimes and enquiries in such cases should be done at the level of SSPs and above.

Amritsar, June 22
With the arrest of seven persons, including three women, the police claims to have busted a brothel allegedly being run in a cinema hall here. The raid was conducted at Indra Palace after a tip-off.

Those nabbed include cinema hall manager Balwant Singh, Harpreet Singh of Ratan Auto Mobiles, Sukhjinder Singh and Abodh.

According to information, the cinema hall was divided into two parts - upper and lower hall. Sources said the upper hall was being used as a brothel and the sex racket was being run in connivance with Balwant Singh. A case has been registered.