AAP wins 24-year-old Congress bastion Jalandhar
CHANDIGARH: In a four-cornered contest, the Aam Aadmi Social gathering (AAP) in Punjab on Saturday received the Jalandhar Lok Sabha bypoll with a thumping margin of 58,691 votes by defeating its nearest rival, the Congress, which misplaced its conventional stronghold of 24 years to the 13-month previous ruling social gathering that was portraying a clear picture and good work.
Congress insurgent and AAP candidate Sushil Rinku, 47, trounced Congress’ Karamjit Kaur, the spouse of Santokh Chaudhary, whose demise through the Bharat Jodo Yatra necessitated the bypoll.
Congress confronted defeat on this seat for the primary time since 1999. Up to now 5 a long time, the Congress has misplaced the seat solely 4 occasions.
This marks the state AAP unit re-entry to the Lok Sabha. Earlier, Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann was the AAP’s first and lone Lok Sabha MP. He resigned from Parliament on being elected as an MLA within the 2022 Punjab Meeting elections. His social gathering couldn’t retain the seat vacated by him within the earlier bypolls.
AAP secured 3,02,097 votes, whereas Congress completed with 2,43,450 votes. The Akali-BSP mix was third with 1,58,354 and the BJP got here fourth place with 1,34,706 votes.
The Jalandhar parliamentary reserved seat falls in state’s Dalit-dominated Doaba area.
AAP candidate Rinku enjoys a very good help base within the Dalit neighborhood. The constituency has 42 per cent Dalit inhabitants.
Conceding the defeat, state Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring congratulated the Aam Aadmi Social gathering and its candidate Sushil Rinku.
“We humbly settle for individuals’s mandate! I thank social gathering employees, volunteers, supporters and the whole @INCPunjab management, for the arduous work & efforts put in by them for the #JalandharByElection. I congratulate Sushil Rinku & AAP social gathering for the victory.”
Describing the “unprecedented victory” due to the Bhagwant Mann authorities’s good work, nationwide convenor and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal stated, “We do the politics of labor and search votes from individuals for our work, and other people have put a stamp on Bhagwant Mann authorities’s work saying ‘we’re with you’… It is a huge message.”
Chief Minister Mann stated the consequence was an final result of growth works by the AAP authorities in Punjab.
Kejriwal and Mann campaigned extensively in Jalandhar, interesting to voters that it has been just one yr for the reason that AAP authorities was fashioned, and that they need to be given 11 extra months earlier than the following Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
Chief Minister Mann wooed votes by saying, “You (individuals) saved on giving probabilities to the Akali Dal and the Congress for 70 years, however they did nothing for you. Simply give us another yr to work. When you don’t love our work, do not vote for us in 2024.”
The Jalandhar bypoll was a do-or-die battle for Chief Minister Mann, says a political observer.
“AAP win stamps Mann’s administrative and management qualities, moreover constructing nationwide narrative as a challenger,” an observer advised IANS.
Within the 2022 Meeting polls, the Congress had received in 5 out of 9 segments within the Jalandhar parliamentary seat, whereas the AAP bagged the remaining seats.