Despite loss, AAP nominees garner huge vote share in Pathankot, Gurdaspur

Ravi Dhaliwal

Gurdaspur, March 13

The tsunami unleashed by the AAP in the Assembly elections was so intense that party candidates who lost have actually performed exceedingly well if the number of votes polled is any indicator.

The twin districts of Pathankot and Gurdaspur have a combined strength of 10 seats, of which three are represented by AAP legislators. Of the remaining seven, each one secured more than 28,000 votes.

The three winners —Amarpal Singh (Sri-Hargobindpur), Sherry Kalsi (Batala) and Lal Chand (Bhoa) — polled over 50,000 votes. “Sherry Kalsi polled more than double the number of votes secured by second placed Ashwani Sekhri (Congress). But what takes the cake is that each of the seven losing candidates came close to the 30,000 figure,” said Amarpal Singh.

In Fatehgarh Churian, AAP’s Balbir Singh, who was placed third, polled an impressive 35,819 votes. “He showed how badly the voters wanted a change from the two-party system,” said a Delhi-based leader.

In Gurdaspur, AAP’s Raman Bahl dug a hole in the vote bank of eventual winner BS Pahra of the Congress and second-placed SAD’s Gurbachan Babbehali by polling nearly 29,000 votes. “The youth, disillusioned that no jobs were created in the past few decades, voted en masse for Bahl.

For all practical purposes, he will be the de facto MLA because of the fact that his party is in power in Chandigarh,” said a senior officer.

Likewise, Jagrup Sekhwan of the AAP contested against Congress bigwig Partap Bajwa from Qadian and had a tally of 34,916 votes to his name. Dinanagar saw Shamsher Singh up against ex-Cabinet minister Aruna Chaudhury, losing despite bagging 50,002 votes. Both Amit Mantu (Sujanpur) and Vibhuti Sharma (Pathankot) touched the 30,000-mark despite being at the losing end. Dera Baba Nanak, from where Deputy CM Sukhjinder Randhawa snatched a win from the jaws of defeat, AAP’s Gurdeep Singh gave his rivals a run for their money by notching up 31,336 votes.

Three days after the counting, the rival parties of the AAP are unable to fathom what hit them. Two Congress ministers claimed that they would engage in a booth-by-booth introspection exercise once the dust settles. “As for now, we are still assessing the overall damage done to us by the tornado that the AAP turned out to be,” quipped one of them.