biggest-losers-in-punjab-are-akalis

The biggest loser in Punjab in the 2024 General Elections has been the Shiromani Akali Dal-Badal. Although it managed to retain Bathinda as a saving grace, its vote percentage share came down to 13.42 per cent down by over 50 per cent from 27.45 in 2019, with at least nine of the 13 candidates failing to save their security deposit even. 

 

While it won Bathinda, in 10 out of 12 seats, it trailed behind the BJP. It was ahead of the BJP only in Faridkot and Khadoor Sahib and that too with a slim margin.

 

Not only did it trail behind its erstwhile alliance partners in the segments, but it also polled a substantial five per cent fewer votes than the BJP. While the BJP got 18.56 votes per cent almost 100 per cent up from 9.63 per cent in 2019, although it could win no seat, the SAD got only 13.42 per cent votes.

 

Although the BJP did not manage to win any of the constituencies, the SAD trailed behind the party (the BJP) in the constituencies of Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Patiala, Sangrur, Ferozepur, Hoshiarpur, Fatehgarh Sahib, Amritsar and Anadpur Sahib. It was ahead of the BJP only in two sets of Faridkot and Khadoor Sahib, where both parties fared poorly. Even here the difference between the two parties was very low. In Khadoor Sahib BJP got just 43 votes less than the SAD. 

 

The voting figures available suggest that in case the two parties had fought together in alliance, they would have won five more constituencies, besides Bathinda.

 

These include Ludhiana, Patiala, Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Ferozepur. The two parties in alliance would have won most of these constituencies with a substantial margin.

 

IN Ludhiana, BJP’s Ravneet Singh Bittu lost to Amarinder Singh Raja Warring by a margin of about 21,000 votes, while the Akali Dal candidate Ranjeet Singh Dhillon got over 90,000 votes. The alliance would have won the seat by at least 70,000 votes if they had contested together.

 

In Amritsar, Gurjeet Singh Aujla of the Congress won after polling 2,55,181 votes. The combined vote count of BJP’s Taranjeet Singh Sandhu and SAD’s Anil Joshi was 3,70,1011. 

 

This means the alliance would have won the seat by a margin of about 1.15 lakh votes.

 

In Patiala, while the winning candidate Dharamvir Gandhi polled 3,05,616 votes, the total number of votes polled by Ms Preneet Kaur of the BJP and NK Sharma of the SAD was 4,42,976 votes, a margin of about 1.37 lakh votes.

 

In Gurdaspur, while the winning candidate Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa got about 3.64 lakh votes, the total number of votes polled by the BJP and the Akali candidates comes to 3.66 lakh votes, although a slim margin of about 2000 votes only. 

 

In Ferozepur, while the winning candidate Sher Singh Gubaya got about 2.66 lakh votes, the BJP and the Akali candidate together polled more than 5 lakh votes. 

 

In Anandpur Sahib and Hoshiarpur parliamentary constituencies, although the combined vote strength of the two parties was lesser than those polled by the winning candidates, the margins were still very low. While in Sri Anandpur Sahib it would have been less than 9,000, in Hoshiarpur it was about 13,000.

 

While it is too early to suggest whether the two erstwhile partners would seek a rapprochement with each other right now, at the same time it cannot be ruled for the future.

 

The vote percentage of the two parties together comes to about 32 percent while that of the AAP and the Congress is 26 percent each. 

Although the two parties have remained quite cold towards each other in the recent past, both of them warming up to each other in the coming future cannot be ruled out. 

 

Circumstances and situations for both the parties are not the same as these were in the past. Coming together may certainly prove to be in the mutual interest of the both.