All set for four-cornered electoral battle
JALANDHAR: The Jalandhar Lok Sabha constituency is all set to witness a four-cornered contest between the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Congress, the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bahujan Samaj Party (SAD-BJP) alliance and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Nineteen candidates are in fray for the bypoll to be held on May 10 after the process of withdrawal of nominations concluded on Monday. No candidate withdrew his/her nomination after the scrutiny of documents on April 21.
The byelection was necessitated after Santokh Singh Chaudhary, the sitting MP, died of a heart attack during Congress leader Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra on January 14. The AAP has fielded turncoat Sushil Kumar Rinku, while the Congress has reposed trust in Chaudhary family by giving ticket to Santokh’s wife Karamjit Kaur Chaudhary.
From the SAD-BSP, sitting Banga MLA Sukhwinder Kumar Sukhi is in fray, while the BJP has chosen Inder Iqbal Singh Atwal, who switched to the saffron party after snapping ties with the SAD.
For the ruling AAP, it is a must-win battle, especially after the party’s defeat in the Sangrur Lok Sabha bypoll in June 2022, three months after it came to power with a thumping mandate of 92 MLAs in the state assembly. The stakes are high for the Congress too, which managed to put up a united show at the nomination filing of Karamjit on April 14. The party is going through a credibility crisis in the state, particularly following its defeat in the 2022 assembly elections. Most of its former cabinet ministers and MLAs are facing vigilance probes over corruption charges and allegedly amassing disproportionate assets during their tenure from 2017 to 2022.