NEW DELHI: Last month, Congress announced Santokh Chaudhry’s wife Karamjit Kaur’s name for Jalandhar (SC) bypoll candidate and this week, AAP also announced its candidate, Sushil Rinku, ex-Congress MLA from Jalandhar (west), who joined AAP, 24 hours ago and was given the ticket.
Amid this political development, BJP and Akali Dal-BSP are yet to announce their candidate. According to sources inside BJP, Rajinder Singh, who joined BJP recently, could be the party’s candidate for the polls.Apart from former Deputy Commissioner of Police from Jalandhar, Rajinder Singh’s name, other names are also doing rounds for tickets.
While talking to The Sunday Guardian, a BJP leader said that former Congress MLA Rajkumar Verka, Punjab BJP general secretary Rajesh Bagga and former Akali leader Avinash Chander’s name is in the race for the ticket.
“Apart from them, Captain Amarinder Singh is also pushing the name of Dalit leader Deepak Jyoti for the ticket,” the BJP leader added. Deepak Jyoti was the candidate from Punjab Lok Congress from the Bassi Pathana Assembly seat in the 2022 elections. Later, Captain’s splinter party PLC merged into BJP.
According to a local BJP leader from Jalandhar, “names of Rajinder Singh and Rajesh Bagga are on top for the ticket because both candidates are local and other parties have named locals”. Asked about what could the main issues that the BJP will take in public, another BJP leader from Jalandhar said: “Our main priority is the law-and-order issue in the state and apart from this, we will also bring up the issue of a smart city project, why money sanctioned by the Centre is not utilized by both former Congress and current AAP government.”
Congress bastion
The Jalandhar bypoll will be the second test for BJP before the 2024 general election. Last year, the BJP, after parting its ways with Akali Dal, fought the Lok Sabha election for the Sangrur bypoll but lost the seat.
The Jalandhar 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.
Jalandhar is also considered a Congress bastion. Since 1999, Congress has been winning the Jalandhar Lok Sabha. The deceased Santokh Choudhry won this seat twice in 2014 and 2019.
“Clinching this seat from Congress will give an edge to other political parties, but the Akali-BSP alliance is looked at as the main contender of Congress in this election,” said Gagandeep Singh, journalist and political analyst.
Akali Dal, BSP past performance
Akali Dal and BSP forged an alliance before the 2022 Assembly elections. But the alliance’s performance was weak and it only managed to win four seats. But if we look at numbers in the 2019 general election when both parties were not in a coalition, Akali Dal begged second and BSP got the third position.
Winner Santokh Choudhry got 3,85,712 and won the seat. On the second number, Akali Candidate Charanjit Singh Atwal got 3,66,221 votes and on the third BSP candidate Balwinder Kumar got 2,04,783. The above number explains how Akali Dal-BSP has now the upper hand in Jalandhar as a coalition. Akali Dal supremo Sukhbir Badal and his wife Harsimrat Kaur Badal have visited the constituency repeatedly. According to sources, the party is in no mood to repeat Charanjeet Singh Atwal and former MLA Adampur Pawan Kumar Tinu could get the ticket.