Punjab Post Daily Online Newspaper & Print Media
THE SAD-BJP CAPTURED THE LARGEST NUMBER OF SEATS,
THE AAP WON MOST SEATS FROM IMPORTANT MALWA BELT,
CONGRESS BAGS THE GOLD AMRITSAR-LUDHIANA-JALANDHAR
Harjap Singh Aujla
India saw lop-sided election result. The BJP’s hurricane flattened everything in its way. Some say it was the massacre of innocents. Of course the remotely controlled decade old government in New Delhi is squarely to blame for its non-goverance or mis-governance at the centre. The 2-G scandal, the coal scandal, the Commonwealth Games Scandal, the Adarsh Housing Scandal, the Robert Wadra rags to riches scandal and the runaway rise in prices of essentials, all added up to sully the image of the grand old Congress Party. All across India Narendra Modi ran an aggressive no holds barred campaign. The nation saw in him the masterly oratory of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and the courage of Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel. He succeeded in uniting a caste riddled Hindu society into a solid voting monolith. The Muslims and the other minorities were a scared lot, but the majority community was ecstatic to the hilt.
In Punjab, there was no such wave as a Modi-Wave, because Punjab is a culturally different territory. The Sikhs in Punjab were bitter at Modi’s repeated attempts to evict Sikh farmers settled in the Rann of Kutchh since the days of Lal Bahadur Shastri in 1965. They were settled in there as a bulwark against the Pakistani infiltrators after the 1965 Indo-Pak War. There was a strong wave of anti-incumbency against the present SAD-BJP regime in the state. The people were fed up with the “Goonda Tax” on sand and gravel charged by the pro-government mafia. They were bitter at the attempts to throttle out the state owned public transport by buses of the ruling family. Rampant unemployment among the educated youth, irregular disbursement of pensions to the government retirees, delayed payment of salaries to government employees, unscheduled power cuts and rampant corruption in government offices at all levels were some of the reasons for the widespread dissatisfaction in the Punjab’s electorate. The Congress was likely to benefit from the feelings of discontentment in voting public. But the sudden appearance of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) took virtually every anti-incumbency vote away from the Congress. The Congress got 33% vote share, the SAD got 26%, the BJP got 9% and the AAP got 24.4%. There was resentment in Punjab against the misrule and corruption at the centre, but it was dwarfed against the resentment against the state government. The hardcore supporters of both the Congress and the SAD-BJP stood stubbornly behind their party candidates, but the burgeoning dissatisfied voter block pulled its weight behind the Aam Aadmi Party.
The AAP drew the first blood in Punjab, its most vocal candidate Bhagwant Mann trounced his wealthy opponents Vijay Inder Singla of the Congress and Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa of the SAD by a wide margin exceeding 211000 votes. His less known colleague from the same party Professor Sadhu Singh bagged the Faridkot seat by a margin of 176000 votes. Dr. Dharam Vir Gandhi of the AAP in Patiala edged past Maharani Preneet Kaur of Patiala by a difference of 20000 votes. In the Fatehgarh Sahib constituenct, a former top bureaucrat turned politician Harinder Singh Khalsa edged out Sadhu Singh Dharamsot of the Congress and millionaire land developer Kulwant Singh of the SAD over 54000 votes.
The Congress candidate a former chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh recorded an impressive 102000 vote upset victory over BJP’s national level stalwart Arun Jaitley in Punjab’s most important constituency of Amritsar. In neighboring Jalandhar, the Congress candidate Chaudhry Santokh Singh registered an 80000 vote margin victory over the SAD candidate Pawan Tinnu. Another prestigious seat of Ludhiana was also bagged by the Congress candidate Ravneet Singh Bittoo. But he defeated a very deserving candidate Advocate Harwinder Singh Phoolka by just 20000 votes. Thus Punjab’s trio of top economic prime-mover cities opted for the Congress. The SAD bagged four seats including Khadoor Sahib (Ranjit Singh Brahmpura), Ferozepore (Sher Singh Ghubaya), Anandpur Sahib (Prem Singh Chandumajra) and Bhatinda (Harsimrat Kaur Badal) all due to the strong presence of AAP. The national winners the BJP won Gurdaspur (Vinod Khanna) and barely managed Hoshiarpur (Vijay Sampla).
