Jalandhar: The ruling Aam Aadmi Party has demolished the Congress stronghold and won the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat on Saturday.
AAP candidate Sushil Rinku defeated Congress candidate Karamjit Kaur Chaudhary by 58,691 votes. Voting for the by-election was held on May 10.
Congress has been winning this seat for the past 4 consecutive times. In 2014 and 2019, late Santokh Singh Chaudhary, husband of Congress candidate Karamjit Kaur Chaudhary, won the election from here. However, the Congress now lost the seat after his sudden death during Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra a few months ago.
Highest leads from Kartarpur and West
In terms of assembly seats, AAP’s Jalandhar candidate Sushil Rinku got the highest lead of 13, 890 from Kartarpur. Jalandhar West got a lead of 9500 in second place. This was followed by 8960 from Adampur, 7,000 from Phillaur and Jalandhar Cantt, 5211 from Nakodar and 273 from Shahkot.
AAP got 543 votes less from Jalandhar Central and 1259 votes less than Congress in Jalandhar North segment. A formal announcement is yet to be released by the Election Commission in this matter.
Meanwhile, the highest voting turnout (58%) was recorded in Kartarpur, the constituency of AAP MLA Balkar Singh. Shahkot assembly constituency came second with 57.4% voting where Congress Hardev Singh Laddi is MLA. The lowest turnout of 49.7% was recorded in Jalandhar Cantt. It is constituency of Congress MLA Pargat Singh. Apart from this, 55.8% voting was recorded in Phillaur, 54.5% in Jalandhar North and 54% in Adampur. All the three seats are held by Congress MLAs.
After Sangrur debacle, Jalandhar bypoll was crucial for AAP
The seat was the biggest concern for the AAP, which lost CM Bhagwant Mann’s Lok Sabha seat in the Sangrur by-election. To win this seat, CM Bhagwant Mann led government campaigned aggressively in the Jalandhar. Delhi CM Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann held several rallies and road shows during campaign. The entire Cabinet of the Punjab government remained engaged in campaigning here for the past one month.