Ex-CM, 5 ministers lose deposit
Chandigarh, March 11
A former Chief Minister, five ex-Cabinet Ministers and a former Union Minister were among those who lost their security deposit in the election results announced on Thursday.
The BJP has the maximum candidates (54) who lost their security deposits, followed by the Congress (30), Shiromani Akali Dal (27) and Capt Amarinder’s Punjab Lok Congress (27), BSP (13), SAD-S (14) and AAP (one).
The biggest embarrassment has come for Capt Amarinder, whose party had contested on 28 seats. Only Capt could save his security deposit. Similarly, in SAD (Sanyukt) only Parminder Singh Dhindsa was the saving grace. AAP’s only candidate who lost his security deposit was Rana Ranjeet Singh from Bholath who got just 13,612 votes.
Any candidate who fails to secure more than one-sixth (16.7%) of the total valid votes leads to forfeiture of the candidate’s security deposit. For the Assembly elections, the security amount is Rs 10,000 for general category candidates and for SCs and STs, it’s Rs 5,000.
The prominent among those who lost the security deposit includes former Congress CM Rajinder Kaur Bhattal (Lehra), Agriculture Minister Randeep Singh Nabha (Amloh), Industry Minister Gurkirat Kotli (Khanna) and Forest Minister Sadhu Singh Dharamsot (Nabha).
