New Delhi: The Aam Aadmi Party has broken Congress’s 24-year grip on the Jalandhar Lok Sabha constituency with a thumping margin of over 58,000 votes. In a four-cornered contest, Sushil Kumar Rinku, a former Congress MLA from the Jalandhar West constituency in the previous assembly who switched to AAP, defeated his closest rival, Congress’s Karamjit Kaur, the wife of Santokh Chaudhary, whose death during the Bharat Jodo Yatra necessitated the by-poll, by over 58,000 votes.
This marks AAP’s re-entry to the Lok Sabha. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, AAP’s first Lok Sabha MP, resigned from the lower house after being elected as an MLA in the Punjab assembly elections last year. His party could, however, not retain the seat in the by-polls. Arvind Kejriwal said the ‘unprecedented victory’ is because of the Bhagwant Mann government’s good work in Punjab. ‘We do the politics of work and seek votes from people for our work, and people have put a stamp on Bhagwant Mann government’s work saying ‘we are with you’… This is a big message’, Bhagwant Mann, who was with Kejriwal, said. ‘The election result has increased our responsibility and my confidence. We will work much harder to develop Punjab’, he said.
Punjab Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring conceded defeat and congratulated the Aam Aadmi Party and its candidate Sushil Rinku. ‘We humbly accept people’s mandate! I thank party workers, volunteers, supporters and the entire @INCPunjab leadership, for the hard work & efforts put in by them for the #JalandharByElection. I congratulate Sushil Rinku & AAP party for the victory’, Warring tweeted.
AAP leader Raghav Chadha, who is reportedly getting engaged to actor Parineeti Chopra in Delhi today, tweeted that the home of his mother’s parents, Jalandhar, has made this day ‘even more special and memorable’ for him. AAP secured 3,02,097 votes, as it steadily widened the gap with Congress which got 2,43,450 votes. The Akali-BSP combine was third with 1,58,354, and the BJP in the fourth place with 1,34,706 votes. BJP had fielded Inder Iqbal Singh Atwal, a Dalit Sikh, who quit the Shiromani Akali Dal to join the saffron party. Shiromani Akali Dal’s Sukhwinder Kumar Sukhi is being backed by the BSP.
The Jalandhar seat fell vacant after the death of Congress MP Santokh Singh Chaudhary. He suffered a cardiac arrest during the party’s Bharat Jodo Yatra in Jalandhar’s Phillaur in January this year. Counting for four assembly seats — Suar and Chhanbey in Uttar Pradesh, Jharsuguda in Odisha, and Sohiong in Meghalaya — is also being held today along with the one Lok Sabha seat in Punjab. While Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party is leading in Mirzapur district’s Chhanbey, and BJP-ally Apna Dal is in second position, it’s the opposite in Rampur district’s Suar, where Apna Dal’s Shafiq Ahmed Ansari has won by a margin on 8,824 votes against the Samajwadi candidate. Rampur was a Samajwadi Party stronghold, held by strongman Azam Khan’s son, Abdullah Azam.
Biju Janata Dal’s Deepali Das, daughter of Odisha health minister Naba Kisore Das who was shot dead in January this year, has won from Jharsuguda, with the BJP in second place. In Meghalaya, United Democratic Party is leading significantly over the National People’s Party. In Uttar Pradesh’s Suar and Chhanbey seats, there is a face off between the ruling coalition and the opposition Samajwadi Party. Though the results will have no precipitative impact on the constitution of the assembly, it will be a morale booster for the victor before the Lok Sabha poll next year. The Mayawati-led Bahujan Samaj Party has decided to not contest the by-elections, while the Congress has fielded its candidate only in Chhanbey. In Meghalaya, a by-poll was necessitated due to the death of UDP candidate HDR Lyngdoh ahead of the assembly elections held in the rest of the state on February 27. Polling to Sohiong was then postponed due to Lyngdoh’s death.
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