The by-elections to Punjab four Assembly segments has come as a wakeup call not only for the State’s principal opposition party — the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), but also for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which is eyeing to expand its base across the State ahead the 2022 assembly elections.
Even as the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) managed to emerge victorious in the ‘battle of prestige’ at Dakha defeating Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh’s trusted lieutenant, its drubbing in party chief Sukhbir Badal’s bastion Jalalabad is being seen as an indicator of things to come.
But what worries the ruling Congress is not only the defeat in Dakha, but the emergence of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) in the state’s dalit hinterland.
BSP SHOWING SIGNS OF REVIVAL
Out of the four seats, BSP fielded its candidate in dalit-dominated segment—Phagwara—and its candidate Bhagwan Dass bagged the third spot by receiving 15,990 (15.47 percent) votes, pushing AAP’s Santosh Kumar Gogi to the fourth place with just 2,910 (2.82 per cent) votes.
BSP, which contested on three seats as a part of the Punjab Democratic Alliance (PDA) in 2019 Lok Sabha elections, secured a considerable number of votes — giving indications of its resurgence in Punjab with even the Chief Minister pointing at the same.
Showing a sign of BSP’s revival in Punjab, its candidates had received a substantial number of votes in 2019 parliamentary polls — performing better than the candidates of the state’s main opposition party, AAP. BSP’s vote share, for its three candidates, was 3.49 per cent in 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
What is more, all its candidates received more than one lakh votes, with one of its candidates crossing two-lakh mark — something which none of the AAP candidates, except its state unit president Bhagwant Mann, could did in 2019 general elections.
Its candidate from Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat, Balwinder Kumar, finished third getting 2,04,783 (20.1 percent) votes, while its candidate from Anandpur Sahib Vikram Singh So dhi got 1,46,441 (13.54 percent) votes. Bureaucrat-turned-politician Khushi Ram, who contested from Hoshiarpur, bagged 1,28,215 (13.06 percent) votes.
In fact, the Chief Minister had blamed the Congress defeat in Hoshairpur Lok Sabha constituency to votes being shifted to BSP, which proved a deciding factor in this constituency and affected the margins in some others.
RESULTS HIT BJP’S EXPANSION PLANS
The bypoll outcome has dented the saffron party’s ambitious expansion plans in Punjab. As the relation between the two alliance partners turned sour, the BJP leaders had started to part ways with the SAD, whose image has suffered a setback over sacrilege issue, and openly talk about going solo in the next state Assembly polls, scheduled for 2022.
But, its defeat in Mukerian and Phagwara has come as a major jolt to the BJP’s state party unit at the time when it was vigorously working towards increasing its base in the State by holding mega membership drive and even exploring the unexplored (read rural segments) areas.
BJP mainly has its vote bank in state’s urban and Hindu areas, including the traders and industrialists. But, the party was now making efforts to even include the rural segments, farmers, Sikh voters into its fold.
BJP-led Central Government’s series of decisions relating to the Sikh community, including opening of Kartarpur corridor, GST waiver on langar items, conviction in 1984 riot cases, among others.
The saffron party has lost Phagwara Assembly constituency by securing the lowest vote share ever since it started contesting from the seat in alliance with the Akali Dal. However, the party’s candidate Jangi Lal Mahajan gave a tough fight to Congress’ Indu Bala in Mukrian and lost by a slender margin of 3,440 votes.
But, here too, BJP witnessed a fall in its vote share from 37,000 votes to the party candidate in the recently held Lok Sabha polls.
AAP INCHING TOWARDS WASHOUT
Stunning everyone by bagging 25 per cent of votes winning four seats out of 13 in Punjab in 2014 Lok Sabha elections, AAP has failed to keep up the momentum and failed to break its defeat jinx. Already split, AAP’s all four candidates lost their security deposits — an indication of the party inching towards a complete washout from the State.
AAP, which was at one point of time considered strong enough to form a Government ahead 2017 State Assembly polls, could secure less than 20,000 votes in the byelections to four segments. In fact, its candidates in Phagwara, Mukerian and Dakha bagged even less than 3,000 votes.
Its vote share of 24.4 percent in 2014 Lok Sabha polls, has come down to 23.7 percent in 2017 State Assembly polls, followed by petite 7.4 per cent in 2017 Assembly polls.
The party failed to retain Dakha assembly constituency, it won in 2017, and could secure just five per cent votes in Jalalabad where it was second to SAD president Sukhbir Badal in 2017.
AAP showed no sign of reviving its fortunes in the state, where it is staggering hard to keep its flocks together. Out of the total 20 MLAs, two have joined the
Congress while one has rebelled against the party. Besides, five others have also turned rebel but are still continuing with the party.