Congress blames SAD for bypoll setback

Absence of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and a direct contest with Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the bypolls saw the Congress suffering a major setback as it lost three of the four primarily rural Assembly segments.

The party lost in its strongholds of Gidderbaha and Dera Baba Nanak. The party was already on a weak footing after its MLA Raj Kumar Chabbewal switched to AAP before becoming Lok Sabha MP from Hoshiarpur. The only silver lining for the party is Barnala where a greenhorn, Kuldeep Singh Dhillon (Kala Dhillon), won in the AAP stronghold. Gurdeep Singh Batth, an AAP rebel, contested the seat as an Independent, thereby splitting party votes.

The poll debacle, five months after winning seven seats in the Lok Sabha elections, has come as a shock to the grand old party.

Accepting the defeat, Pradesh Congress Committee chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring said the party lost largely due to the absence of SAD and Akali voters opting for AAP. “We have been able to retain our voter base in Gidderbaha and Dera Baba Nanak. Earlier, it was always a fight the Congress versus Akalis,” he said.

Party insiders said the poll debacle would have implications on the state of affairs in the Punjab unit of the party. With two tall leaders — PPCC chief and Ludhiana MP Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, whose wife Amrita warring lost from Gidderbaha, and Gurdaspur MP Sukhjinder Randhawa, whose wife Jatinder Kaur was defeated in Dera Baba Nanak — biting the dust, heads are set to roll in the state Congress unit.

As criticism is mounting against Raja Warring, some within the Congress are suggesting that after being elected as MP, he should hand over the state leadership to someone else. With AAP appointing a Hindu leader, Aman Arora, as its state chief, there is a growing discussion within the Congress about the need to prioritise OBC, Hindu and Dalit leadership. The party strength in the Punjab Vidhan Sabha has dropped to 16 from 18 in 2022.

CLP leader Partap Singh Bajwa said the Congress had been able to retain its voter base and rather slightly increased it, but a majority of Akali voters voted for AAP. Senior party leader and former Sangrur MLA Vinay Inder Singla, who campaigned in Barnala, said the party votes had increased from 16,853 in the 2022 elections to 28,254 now.

Interestingly, the absence of SAD from the electoral fight seems to have caused a shift of Akali voters towards AAP, and not the BJP that had fielded former Akali leaders on three of the seats for which the byelections were held.