Chandigarh: The Congress dealt a body blow to the ruling AAP and the opposition BJP and SAD, winning seven of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in the high-stakes polls in Punjab even as two independents, including jailed radical Sikh preacher Amritpal Singh, registered a surprise victory.
While the Arvind Kejriwal-led Aam Aadmi Party clinched three seats, the Sukhbir Singh Badal-led Shiromani Akali Dal could win only one seat and the BJP drew a blank in the border state. The Congress appeared to have bounced back in the state’s political landscape after suffering a humiliating defeat at the hands of the AAP in the 2022 Punjab assembly polls.
The prominent winners in this election were Congress’ Charanjit Singh Channi, Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, SAD candidate and three-time MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal, and AAP’s Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer. Besides, Amritpal Singh won the Khadoor Sahib seat, defeating Congress party’s Kulbir Singh Zira by a margin of 1.97 lakh votes -- highest among the 13 seats in the state.
Another independent candidate Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa, the son of one of the two assassins of former prime minister Indira Gandhi, registered a victory from the Faridkot seat.
Amritpal Singh is the chief of the ‘Waris Punjab De’ outfit and is currently lodged in Assam’s Dibrugarh jail under the National Security Act.
Major upsets in the poll outcome included four-time MP and BJP candidate Preneet Kaur, BJP’s Ravneet Singh Bittu, Sushil Rinku, Hans Raj Hans, Taranjit Singh Sandhu, Anita Som Parkash, Parampal Kaur Sidhu, SAD (Amritsar) Simranjit Singh Mann, Congress party’s Sukhpal Singh Khaira and SAD’s Prem Singh Chandumajra, Daljit Singh Cheema. Punjab this time saw a multi-cornered contest in all 13 Lok Sabha seats.
The INDIA bloc allies Congress and AAP contested separately while the BJP and Shiromani Akali Dal fought the Lok Sabha polls on their own for the first time since 1996.