By-Polls: AAP Win Jalandhar Lok Sabha Seat, BJD, SP, Apna Dal One Seat Each in Assemblies
Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, May 13: Amidst its spectacular victory in Karnataka, the Congress lost a seat in the Lok Sabha when its candidate was defeated by the Aam Aadmi Party in the Parliamentary by-election in Jalandhar in Punjab.
The Congress held the Jalandhar seat but the by-election was caused by the death of Santokh Chaudhary, who suffered a heart attack while walking side-by-side Rahul Gandhi during the recent “Bharat Jodo Yatra.” The Congress fielded his wife Karamjit Kaur for the byelection but she was defeated by Sushil Kumar Rinku providing the AAP only seat in the Lok Sabha and broke the Congress party’s 24 year old hold on Jalandhar.
Rinku, a former Congress MLA from Jalandhar West constituency, who joined the AAP, defeated Kaur by a margin of more than 58,000 votes with the Akali-BSP Joint candidate coming a poor third and the BJP nominee finishing at the fourth place in the four-cornered contest for the seat. This also marked the re-entry of the AAP’s in the Lok Sabha. Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, AAP’s first Lok Sabha MP, resigned from the lower house after being elected as an MLA in the Punjab assembly elections last year and later lost the by-poll.
Arvind Kejriwal said the “unprecedented victory” is because of the Bhagwant Mann government’s good work in Punjab. “We do the politics of work and seek votes from people for our work, and people have put a stamp on Bhagwant Mann government’s work saying ‘we are with you’… This is a big message,” Bhagwant Mann, who was with Kejriwal, said, “The election result has increased our responsibility and my confidence. We will work much harder to develop Punjab,” he said.
In the by-elections for four state Assembly seats, the ruling Biju Janata Dal (BJD) won the Jharsuguda seat in Odisha even with a bigger margin than it had won in the general elections, while in Uttar Pradesh the Samajwadi Party and the BJP-supported Apna Dal won one seat each. The counting was still in progress for the Sohiong seat in Meghalaya.
While Akhilesh Yadav’s Samajwadi Party won the Mirzapur district’s Chhanbey seat, the BJP-ally Apna Dal wrested the Suar seat from the SP in Rampur district, a stronghold of the SP so far held by strongman Azam Khan’s son, Abdullah Azam.
Biju Janata Dal’s Deepali Das, daughter of Odisha health minister Naba Kisore Das who was shot dead in January this year, has won from Jharsuguda, with the BJP in second place. In Meghalaya, United Democratic Party is leading significantly over the National People’s Party.
Besides sharing a seat with the SP, the BJP also registered spectacular victory in the local self-government body elections in Uttar Pradesh. Welcoming the BJP’s victory in the Uttar Pradesh civic polls, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath thanked voters and assured that his government would ensure development and good governance.
“With the efforts of BJP workers and the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the BJP has been successful in mayor polls. This is the biggest victory for BJP in local body elections in Uttar Pradesh. I want to thank the voters for this mandate and assure them that the Uttar Pradesh government will ensure development and good governance,” Adityanath told the media on Saturday evening.
According to the latest trends, the BJP has been declared the winner in four civic bodies — Jhansi, Ayodhya, Saharanpur and Vrindavan-Mathura — and is leading in 13 other civic bodies. Earlier, the Chief Minister, in a tweet, congratulated citizens and party workers on the stellar show.
He said the victory demonstrates public faith into Prime Minister Modi’s guidance and the pro-people policies of the BJP’s double engine government. Samajwadi Party, the state’s main opposition, has levelled multiple allegations of electoral malpractice and demanded a probe.
