Cong scores a duck in Nawanshahr district

Avneet Kaur

Nawanshahr, March 10

The SAD, BSP and AAP won one seat each in three Assembly segments in Nawanshahr district, while the Congress was clean-bowled and one of its candidates even lost his security deposit.

Even though Nawanshahr has voted mostly for the Congress, this time Dr Nachhtar Pal of the SAD-BSP won the seat by 37,031 votes, while AAP candidate Lalit Mohan Ballu emerged as runner-up with 31,655 votes. At the third spot, it was Independent candidate Angad Singh who got 31,516 votes.

Notably, in the 2017 election, Angad had contested against his own uncle, Charanjit Singh Channi, who was an AAP candidate. His uncle had finished at the third place, while SAD candidate Jarnail Singh Wahid had come second. This time, too, the Congress was expected to give ticket to either Angad Saini or his mother Guriqbal Kaur, the most probable candidates as they belong to late Dilbag Singh’s family (the most influential leader from the seat). But to everyone’s surprise, they picked Satvir Singh Palli Jhikki from the seat, who was first PLC’s candidate from the seat.

Meanwhile, the decision of choosing Jhikki over Angad seems to have backfired on the Congress as the former polled just 6,998 votes and lost his security deposit.

In Gujjar-dominated Balachaur constituency which was considered a SAD stronghold, AAP Candidate and daughter-in-law of former MLA Ram Kishan Kataria, Santosh Kumari Katariaa won by defeating nearest rival candidate Sunita Chaudhary, daughter-in-law of Nand Lal, who won from the seat four times in a row between 1997 and 2012, by 4,541 votes. In Banga, Dr Sukhwinder Kumar Sukhi of SAD-BSP emerged victorious by defeating Congress candidate Tarlochan Singh with a margin of 5,069 votes. Sources say the reason why doctor retained his seat this time was because he was quite popular amongst the voters for his free medical services to the needy and the work he did during Covid times in 2020.