Jalandhar Lok Sabha bypoll will be litmus test for AAP

‘Party is in no mood to repeat defeat like in the Sangrur seat’.

NEW DELHI: The Election Commission has announced the much-awaited Jalandhar Lok Sabha by-election date. Jalandhar, in Punjab’s Doaba, will vote on 10 May and results will be declared on 13 May. The seat fell vacant after the sudden death of sitting Member of Parliament and Congress leader Santokh Chaudhry, while Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra was in Jalandhar.
This election is seen as crucial for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and many political analysts are dubbing this as a litmus test for AAP. This election is taking place after the launch of “Operation Amritpal”. It is also seen that Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has visited Jalandhar many times in the past months and on 25 March, both Delhi Chief Minister and AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab CM Mann visited Dera Sach Khand Balkan, near Jalandhar. The Dera has a great presence in the Dalit community of the Doaba region and Dalit votes are sizeable in Jalandhar Lok Sabha.
“The party is in no mood to repeat defeat like in the Sangrur seat,” said an AAP leader from Punjab. Asked about who could be the party’s candidate for by-polls, he said; “The senior leadership of the party is on the job and soon a candidate will be announced.”
Last year, AAP won the Punjab Assembly elections by securing 92 seats and Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann was made CM of Punjab. Later, the Sangrur seat went for by-election; AAP lost the seat to Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar), and Khalistan sympathiser Simranjit Singh Mann became MP from Sangrur. “At that time, the situation was different and we lost due to singer Sidhu Moosewala’s death, but the margin in our defeat was low,” said an AAP leader from Jalandhar.
Political analysts believe that there are various reasons that would impact AAP’s performance in the bypolls. The party is short of a Dalit face in the region to project as an MP candidate and above this, the Amritpal Singh episode has brought a question mark on the law-and-order situation in the state.
Jalandhar is considered a Congress bastion, and party leaders think that clinching it from Congress will give it a boost before the upcoming 2024 general elections. Since 1999, the Congress has been winning the Jalandhar Lok Sabha. The deceased Santokh Choudhry won this seat twice in 2014 and 2019.
Congress has announced Karamjit Kaur, wife of Santokh Chaudhry, as its candidate for the election and all other mainstream parties like BJP, and Akali Dal are yet to announce their candidates for the bypolls.
The Jalandhar Lok Sabha consists of nine Assembly seats: Phillaur, Nakodar, Shahkot, Kartarpur, Jalandhar West, Jalandhar Central, Jalandhar North, Jalandhar Cantt, and Adampur.
In 2022 Assembly elections, AAP won four Assembly seats and the remaining five were won by the Congress. “We have a good presence in Jalandhar with four MLAs from AAP and those others who had lost elections, lost on less margin,” said AAP leader Jagtar Singh Sanghera.
According to the AAP leader, the party has solved major civic issues in Jalandhar city, which has increased people’s faith in the party. “Free electricity and employment opportunities have strengthened our position and AAP will definitely win this election,” said Sanghera.