After setback in Lok Sabha poll, AAP’s landslide win surprises many

Deepkamal Kaur

Jalandhar, July 13

Jalandhar West voters have a history of going with the ruling state government and so they did in the July 10 bypoll, the results of which were declared today.

Voters supported Bhagat Chunni Lal in 2007 and 2012 when the SAD-BJP was in power. They went for the Congress in 2017, AAP in 2022 and once again back to AAP this time when the same AAP government is in power.

Likewise, AAP, which was down from 92 to 90 seats after the LS poll because of the resignation of Sheetal Angural and elevation of Gurmeet S Meet Hayer as the Sangrur MP, has regained one more seat to take the tally to 91.

There are four more Assembly bypoll slated in Punjab which can change the figure all over again in the coming months.

Leaders and workers of almost all parties knew it well that the AAP would be winning the elections but everyone’s guess was that it could be with a margin of 10,000-15,000 votes at the most. Like the way no one was expecting that Charanjit Channi would win by 1.75 lakh votes in the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections, not even AAP leaders were expecting a landslide victory for the party by 37,325 votes. The AAP polled 55,246 votes, which was 40,000 more votes which the party had got from this segment in June 1 LS poll.

Other than freebie distribution and the use of money and muscle power by the government, which most rival leaders have been alleging, the biggest factor that worked against the Congress was its less synchronised campaign on ground.

“Our three big party leaders – PCC chief Amarinder S Raja Warring, LoP Partap Bajwa and Jalandhar MP Charanjit Singh Channi – got together at White Diamond Resort for workers’ meet about 10 days ahead of the elections, but ever since there had been no coherence. Big leaders did not take the local leaders along in roadshows, media interactions and other events. Most councillors had left the party and those who were still there did not campaign much because of local rivalries. In a nutshell, our campaign lacked the much-needed coordination and attack against the government,” said a senior party leader.

BJP leader Amit Taneja said: “The AAP got joined 112 leaders and workers from our party in this election. They distributed freebies with the patronage of the government. We caught them red-handed and even handed them over to the police. The police remained a mute spectator by not even registering a case on any of the complaints that we filed, including that on the presence of outsider AAP workers on the polling day.”

However, AAP leaders are ruling out all other factors. “It is solely the work of Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann that paid us. He remained on ground and led our campaign, which has shown results,” said Balkar Singh, AAP minister.

SAD’s claim of community support falls flat

Claims of SAD candidate Surjit Kaur of getting a support of her Sirkiband Rajput community having 15,000-plus voters in Jalandhar West seemed to have fallen flat as she could get only 1,242 votes. The SAD team, led by Sukhbir Badal, had withdrawn support to her and she got the support of rebel group only led by PS Chandumajra, Jagir Kaur and Gurpartap Wadala. SAD candidate MS Kaypee got 2,326 votes in LS polls last month. Sukhbir Badal-group had announced support to BSP candidate Binder Lakha, but he too could garner only 734 votes. This was marginally up from NOTA votes of 687 and the score of some Independents like Neetu Shatranwala who got 236 votes.