AAP wins Jalandhar bypoll, gets its only Lok Sabha MP
JALANDHAR: The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Saturday wrested the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat from the Congress in the highstakes bypoll, ending the Congress’ dominance on the Dalit stronghold and giving the AAP its sole seat in Parliament’s lower house.
AAP’s Sushil Rinku, 47, defeated Congress candidate Karamjit Kaur Chaudhary with a large margin of 58,691 votes.
Rinku, who joined the AAP after quitting the Congress ahead of the bypoll, polled 302,279 votes while Chaudhary secured 243,588 votes, data from the Election Commission showed.
The victory has come as a shot in the arm for the AAP with the bypoll being seen as a litmus test for the party which faced a drubbing in the Sangrur Lok Sabha bypoll last year, just three months after it stormed to power in the state in March.
The SAD-BSP candidate, Dr Sukhwinder Kumar Sukhi, polled 1,58,445 votes and came third. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate Inder Iqbal Singh Atwal got 1,34,800 votes and secured the fourth spot. Atwal lost his security deposit, too. Jalandhar recorded 54.7% polling on May 10.
“This is the victory of people. They have come to know that only the AAP can understand their pain and bring Punjab back on track. I thank the party leadership, including party supremo Arvind Kejriwal and (Punjab chief minister) Bhagwant Mann for reposing faith in me,” Rinku said after coming out of the counting centre.
The AAP vote share skyrocketed to 34.05% this time from 0.31% in the 2019 general election. The Congress vote share dropped to 27.44% from 40.12% in 2019. The SAD-BSP tie-up got 17.85% of the vote share, while in 2019, the SAD’s share was 27.45%, while the BSP’s was 3.49%. However, the BJP’s vote share went up to 15.19% from 9.63% in 2019.
The byelection was necessitated after sitting Congress MP Santokh Chaudhary died due to a heart attack while taking part in the Punjab leg of the Bharat Jodo Yatra of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on January 14.
What worked for AAP
With its winning performance, the ruling AAP has not only breached the Congress-dominated citadel but its nominee Rinku, a key Dalit leader, has emerged as a force to reckon with in the Doaba region.
Rinku, a former Congress MLA, switched to the AAP on April 27, a day after which he was declared the AAP candidate.
Banking on its performance of 14 months and countering the anti-incumbency wave projected by the opposition, the ruling AAP went all out and carried out an extensive campaign led by Bhagwant Mann since the announcement of the elections.
The responsibility of managing the campaign was assigned to the party’s key Dalit face and Punjab finance minister Harpal Singh Cheema. Delhi chief minister and party supremo Kejriwal held roadshows in all nine assembly segments besides addressing a key rally in Jalandhar central segment.
The campaign revolved around the AAP’s populist agenda, including providing free 300 units of electricity, employment to 28,496 people in the first year of its tenure, opening of mohalla clinics and developments in the education sector.
The AAP’s stance against corrupt leaders went in its favour. AAP leaders focused on how the leaders of traditional parties siphoned off post-matric scholarship meant for Dalit students besides halting welfare schemes meant for Scheduled Castes.