Chandigarh, August 6
The Shiromani Akali Dal has made a clean sweep by winning all the three byelections for the state Assembly that were held this week. The results declared on Thursday were a foregone conclusion as the main opposition , Congress, had put up a feeble and half-hearted campaign and a symbolic fight.
SAD candidates Sukhbir Singh Badal, Sewa Singh Sekhwan and Jasjit Singh Bunny romped home comfortably, with the former deputy chief minister polling 80 per cent of the total valid votes and defeating his nearest Congress candidate with a huge margin of over 80,000 votes in Jalalabad.
The victory margin was the lowest in Kahnuwan, where Sekhwan pipped his nearest Congress rival by just about 12,000 votes. In the Banur constituency also, SAD won by a reduced margin than its previous incumbent, late Captain Kanwaljit Singh, who had won the seat in 2007 with a margin of over 42,000 votes. This time, his son Jasjit Singh Bunny managed a lead of less than 20,000 votes.
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal hailed the victories as endorsement of SAD’s good governance. While Sukhbir Badal’s re-induction in the ministry is, again, a foregone conclusion, the CM can induct only one of the remaining two victors in the ministry.
Sekhwan, who has been a minister earlier, appears to have better chances of getting in.
Kahnuwan and Jalalabad seats fell vacant following the election of their incumbents - Partap Singh Bajwa (Congress) and Sher Singh Ghubaiya (Shiromani Akali Dal) to the Lok Sabha in May this year. Banur assembly seat was declared vacant after the unfortunate death of Punjab Cooperation Minister Capt Kanwaljit Singh in a ghastly road mishap on March 29 this year.
Jasjeet Singh Bunny surprised his detractors, who expected him to scrape through, by winning the seat with a margin of nearly 20000 votes despite some aggressive campaigning in the final phase of the campaign by the Union Minister of State for External Affairs Perneet Kaur and her husband and former Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh.
In Kahnuwan, it was left to Partap Singh Bajwa to spearhead the campaign for his brother Fateh Jung Singh Bajwa. But margin of victory for Sewa Singh Sekhwan was a reversal of voting trends witnessed during the May Lok Sabha elections.
