GURDASPUR/
CHANDIGARH, Oct 15:
The Congress today wrested the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha seat from the BJP with its Punjab unit chief Sunil Jakhar trouncing saffron party candidate Swaran Salaria by a whopping margin of 1,93,219 votes in the high stakes bypoll.
Jakhar polled 4,99,752 votes, way ahead of the BJP candidate’s 3,06,533, while the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Major General (retd) Suresh Khajuria finished a distant third, garnering a mere 23,579 votes.
Khajuria lost his security deposit.
Jakhar maintained the lead in all nine Assembly segments, right from start of the counting of votes at 8 am, in a contest that virtually turned out to be a direct fight between the Congress and the BJP.
Polling for the Gurdaspur seat, which had fallen vacant after the death of BJP MP Vinod Khanna in April this year, was held on October 11.
After the Congress’ landslide win, it was early Diwali for party workers who distributed sweets. Celebratory scenes were witnessed at the party’s offices at Chandigarh, Patiala, Ludhiana, Jalandhar and Amritsar apart from several places in Gurdaspur.
The bypoll was important as it was being seen as a barometer of the popularity of the six-month old Captain Amarinder Singh Government in Punjab.
The Chief Minister hailed the victory as a “total rejection of the anti-people policies” of the BJP and its ally SAD and claimed it underlined the “political annihilation” of the AAP.
He said the Gurdaspur result had once again showed that the Congress was on the revival path across the country. The Congress had last won this seat in 2009 when Partap Singh Bajwa defeated BJP’s actor-turned politician Vinod Khanna.
The actor’s wife Kavita Khanna was among the front- runners for the BJP ticket, but the party chose businessman Salaria over her.
Vinod Khanna had won this seat in 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2014.
After defeating the BJP in its stronghold, the Congress was quick to claim that the win will set the tone for the 2019 general elections.
“With this victory, people have reaffirmed faith in the leadership of Amarinder Singh,” said Jakhar who battled the “outsider” tag in the bypoll. Jakhar, who hails from Abohar in Fazilka, had lost in the 2017 Assembly polls.
“The BJP must read the writing on the wall now,” Jakhar said after his emphatic win and added that the “people have rejected the BJP and shown mirror to the Akalis”.
Congress communications incharge Randeep Singh Surjewla said the victory margin reflected the huge disappointment among the people towards the Modi Government at the Centre.
The UPA has won all the four Lok Sabha byelections in 2017: Amritsar, Srinagar, Malappuram and now Gurdaspur, Surjewala said. (PTI)
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