Cong breaks jinx, yet 1 seat down
SAD gains Talwandi Sabo, while Preneet keeps Patiala in the family; AAP loses deposit
PATIALA: The Cong ress on Monday became the first opposition party in Punjab since 1998 to win an assembly byelection.
In Patiala, its candidate, Preneet Kaur, defeated Bhagwan Dass Juneja of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) by 23,282 votes to take the seat which her husband, Captain Amarinder Singh had vacated on being elected to Parliament from Amritsar earlier this year.
After 1998 when the Congress won Adampur during the Akali rule, the respective ruling parties have won every byelection in Punjab; and the SAD has won all since it formed the government in 2007.
Overall, the SAD has gained one seat, wresting Talwandi Sabo from the Congress, while Amarinder has recaptured a strong position in the state Congress.
The setbacks came to the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), which lost security deposit on both seats, and state Congress president Partap Singh Bajwa, who had camped at Talwandi Sabo to canvass for Harminder Jassi.
Reacting to the victory in Patiala, the only seat where he had campaigned, Amarinder said: “It will prove a gamechanger in state politics and pave way for a Congress government in 2017.”
Chief minister Parkash Singh Badal had a different take. “The SAD has only gained in the byelections. We won the Talwandi Sabo seat and in just three months since the Lok Sabha election, improved our Patiala tally by 13,343 votes, almost a double
PRENEET GOT 52,967 VOTES, THE SAD ONLY 29,685 AND THE AAP A MEAGRE 5,724
jump,” he said.The AAP, which three months ago had won the Patiala Lok Sabha seat, would not have expected a drubbing for its candidate, Harjit Singh Adaltiwala. Preneet won 52,967 votes (59.10 %), the SAD only 29,685 ( 33 %) and the AAP a meagre 5,724 (6 %).
The SAD tactic of polarising the constituency’s 60% Hindu voters by fielding a candidate from the community got it only 5,962 more votes from the 2012 assembly elections, for all its effort. The gain is attributed also to the social worker image of Juneja. Neglecting Patiala and keeping its civic conditions poor cost the SAD dear, and by fielding a Hindu candidate, it also lost the urban Sikh votes.
Explaining the AAP embarrassing show, local parliamentarian Dharamivra Gandhi said the SAD and the Congress had intimidated the party voters.