As the Aam Aadmi Party’s broom succeeded in sweeping Delhi Assembly elections, the Shiromani Akali Dal’s hopes of emerging as a national political party were dashed to ground with the electorate of national Capital giving their verdict against four of its candidates. The SAD had fielded four candidates in all, but only one of them was contesting on party’s symbol, the weighing scale. Nevertheless, the party is finding some solace in the “increased” vote share of its candidates on the four seats it contested.
Former MlA Manjinder Singh Sirsa, who was contesting on SAD party symbol, lost to AAP’s Jarnail Singh from Rajouri Garden constituency. The other three candidates, who contested on BJP’s symbol, the lotus — senior Akali leader Harmeet Singh Kalka, Jitender Pal Singh Shanty, and Avtar Singh Hit also faced defeat from Kalkaji, Shahdara, and Harinagar.
SAD managed to grab three seats out of four it contested during 2013 State Assembly polls. It had won Rajaouri Garden on its own symbol, and Kalkaji and Shahdara on BJP’s symbol. It lost Harinagar seat, contested on its symbol. Former MlAs — Sirsa, Shanty, and Kalka — could not retain their seats and lost to AAP candidates despite the presence of entire Punjab Cabinet and senior Akali leadership.
SAD’s strongest candidate Sirsa lost by a margin of around 10,000 votes to AAP’s Jarnail Singh, known as a ‘shoe-thrower’. A former journalist, Jarnail Singh’s claim to fame was throwing his shoe at the then Union Minister P Chidambaram during a press conference in 2009 to stage his protest on 1984 issue.
Party’s another strong leader, Shanty, also lost to AAP’s Ram Niwas Goyal by a margin of 12,000 votes, while Kalka was made to bite dust by AAP’s Avtar Singh Kalka with a margin of about 20,000 votes. Hit also faced defeat by the hands of AAP’s Jagdeep Singh by around 26,000 votes. The defeat of all SAD’s candidates in Delhi has come as a major setback for the party which is eyeing to spread its wings in other States.
For SAD, defeat from Rajouri Garden has come as a major shock as the party was considering it as a strong seat, dominated by the Sikh population. The party had also appointed its strong leader and Punjab’s Cabinet Minister Bikram Singh Majithia as election in-charge, which, political analysts believed, has went against the party just like it did in Amritsar lok Sabha elections owing to Majthia’s involvement in drug case.
Political analysts maintained that BJP’s move to announce compensation for the 1984 anti-Sikh riot victims could not work for the combine. Instead, they maintained that the SAD-BJP alliance suffered due to saffron party’s “anti-minority” and “communal” image.
Sirsa, after defeat, has openly attacked the BJP leadership for “not consulting” the party MlAs before taking several decision. “They took Dera Sacha Sauda’s support while Akalis are against them in Punjab. We were never consulted. They announced Kiran Bedi as chief ministerial candidate, given ticket to Krishna Tirath, but never asked us,” said Sirsa, while talking to The Pioneer.
He blamed that it was BJP who decided who would campaign for whom and on what issues the elections would be fought “without discussing it with us”. “I never asked Sadhvi (Niranjan Jyoti) to come and campaign for me. Her one controversial statement went against me that all, except few, Muslim votes went to AAP candidate,” he alleged.