Punjab: AAP wins Tarn Taran bypoll
Chandigarh: Punjab’s ruling AAP retained the Tarn Taran Assembly seat with its candidate Harmeet Singh Sandhu defeating his nearest rival and SAD nominee Sukhwinder Kaur Randhawa by a margin of 12,091 votes in the bypolls.
Congress and BJP candidates lost their security deposits.
Sandhu secured 42,649 votes against Randhawa’s 30,558 after the completion of all 16 rounds of counting, the Election Commission website showed.
AAP’s Punjab in-charge Manish Sisodia, celebrating the victory with ministers, MLAs and volunteers at the party office, said: “The people of Punjab have once again rejected Congress, BJP, and Akali Dal. Congress leaders, despite not even being in power, issued arrogant statements and challenged the consciousness of Punjabis.”
“The people responded with a historic mandate driven by their anger against Congress’s repeated anti-social and insensitive remarks. AAP’s all by-election victories, Ludhiana West (urban seat), Jalandhar West (Dalit Majority seat) and Tarn Taran (rural and panthak seat), prove AAP is the first choice of every region and community,” he added.
Addressing a press conference at the AAP headquarters in Chandigarh, Punjab AAP president Aman Arora, accompanied by Cabinet ministers Laljit Singh Bhullar (AAP’s Tarn Taran by-election in-charge), Hardeep Singh Mundian and Barinder Goyal, said: “The landslide victory is a direct stamp of approval by the people of Tarn Taran on the work done by the Mann government over the last three and a half years. Congress and BJP, who had been running false propaganda for months, lost their deposits, proving that Punjabis have completely rejected them.”
He added that the Congress indulged in “divisive caste and religious politics and used insulting language against the Dalit community. The people have answered them with a crushing defeat. BJP, which has consistently attacked Punjab and Punjabiyat, has been rejected with absolute clarity by the people of Tarn Taran”.
Arora emphasised that AAP’s victory across three different demographic categories proves that AAP is the “preferred party of every religion, caste, region and class”.
Arora thanked Arvind Kejriwal, CM Bhagwant Mann, Manish Sisodia, all AAP ministers, MLAs, workers and every voter of Tarn Taran for strengthening the party.
Meanwhile, Sandhu, along with AAP state working president Sherry Kalsi, held a massive thanksgiving roadshow in Tarn Taran to express gratitude to the people for their trust and unwavering support.
