Khalsa defies election experts’ prediction in Fatehgarh Sahib
The antiincumbency factor against the state government and the central government played a major role in this Lok Sabha constituency (reserved) as AAP had an edge over the candidates of the SADBJP combine and the Congress.
The people chose a new option that was Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as a best choice to shake the ruling SAD-BJP government in the state and the Congress in centre.
In his case it was believed that he had not much grassroot-level network in the constituency but the results proved otherwise and defied the predictions of political pundits.
Khalsa got 3,67,293 votes and managed to maintain his lead in six assembly segments of Fatehgarh Sahib (reserved) constituency including Fatehgarh Sahib, Bassi, Samrala, Payal, Raikot and Amargarh.
The Congress candidate got lead only in the Khanna and Amloh assembly constituency whereas realtor-turned-politician and SAD-BJP candidate got lead only from the Sahnewal assembly segment.
Political pundits had claimed that the Congress had a stronghold in the assembly segments of Khanna, Amloh, Fatehgarh Sahib, Raikot and Samrala where as the SAD claimed to have strongholds in Bassi Pathana, Payal, Sahnewal and Amargarh
The data gathered by HT revealed that AAP managed to get maximum vote share in Raikot (59482) where it was learnt that another Congress aspirant Amar Singh was keen to contest the elections.
From the data, it was clear that the Congress got minimum votes (18,985) as compared to other assembly constituencies where the party got about 28,000 to 41,000 votes.
Similarly AAP candidate got a huge chunk of votes in the Amargarh (45,648) and Payal (42,213) assembly constituencies which is being presently represented by ruling SAD MLAs Iqbal Singh Jhundan and Charanjit Singh Atwal, respectively.
The trend further showed that AAP also got maximum benefit from stronghold of the Akalis in Sahnewal when the Congress got 51,620 votes and the SAD got 56,188 whereas the AAP got only 35,415 votes.
AAP got benefit in this assembly segment, claimed to be the stronghold of the Akalis as the Congress also secured reasonable votes and because of votes bifurcation, the SAD candidate was not able to get expected margin from this constituency.
However, Khalsa got only 27,595 votes from the Amloh assembly constituency but he again gained overall because the constituency is believed to be the stronghold of the Congress .