Chandigarh, June 4 (IANS) With the counting of votes for the 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab underway on Tuesday, initial polling trends indicated the Congress is leading in six seats, while the state’s ruling AAP is ahead in four and the Shiromani Akali Dal is holding on to its traditional seat Bathinda.
Two Independent candidates have been consistently leading since the first round. They are Sikh radical Amritpal Singh, head of ‘Waris Punjab De’ who is locked in an Assam jail under the National Security Act, from Khadoor Sahib, while Sarabjit Singh, the son of one of the assassins of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, in the fray from Faridkot (reserved). They evoked a “radical” wave.
As per the Election Commission of India, the biggest margin so far is of former Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, who is leading with 1 lakh votes in Jalandhar-reserved. The thinnest margin is of AAP candidate Jagdeep Singh Kaka Brar in Firozpur, at 429.
Congress’ Sukhjinder Randhawa is leading in the Gurdaspur seat against BJP’s Dinesh Singh Babbu. The party’s sitting MP Gurjeet Singh Aujla is ahead of AAP’s Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal and BJP’s Taranjit Singh Sandhu, the diplomat-turned-politician who is making his electoral debut, in Amritsar. In Patiala, Dharamvira Gandhi of the Congress is leading and so is Congress state President Amrinder Singh Raja Warring in Ludhiana against BJP’s Ravneet Singh Bittu.
Akali Dal’s Harsimrat Kaur Badal, who held portfolios in both the Modi-led Central governments, is leading to retain the politically significant Bathinda seat, also known as the state’s cotton belt, for the fourth consecutive term.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is leading from Hoshiarpur (reserved), Anandpur Sahib and Sangrur seats, as per the trends. The border state, where the BJP and its former ally Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) went solo, has a multi-cornered fight on all 13 parliamentary seats with 328 candidates in the fray. In 2019, the BJP in alliance with the Akali Dal had contested three Lok Sabha seats (Amritsar, Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur), while the latter contested the remaining 10. At that time, the state’s ruling Congress had won eight seats — Amritsar, Faridkot, Anandpur Sahib, Jalandhar, Khadoor Sahib, Ludhiana, Fatehgarh Sahib and Patiala seats — while the Akali Dal won Bathinda and Firozpur and the BJP Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur seats. The AAP won from Sangrur.
