Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh.After election results, the focus in Punjab has now shifted on performance of ministers in the Lok Sabha election. Out of a Cabinet of 18 ministers, five party candidates lost in the constituencies of five ministers.
Punjab CM Amarinder Singh had announced before elections that any minister not performing his Assembly segment would be dropped from the Cabinet. Addressing the mediaon Thursday, Amarinder said, “We will review the performance of the ministers, it was not a veiled threat made by the party before the elections.”
The list of five ministers who have not delivered results for the party include Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal, Sports Minister and an aide of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, Rana Gurmit Singh Sodhi, PWD Minister Vijay Inder Singla, Industries Minister Sunder Sham Arora and Transport minister Aruna Choudhary. All the five Congress candidates, in whose Lok Sabha constituencies these Assembly segments fell, also lost.
Congress candidate from Bathinda Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, who lost to SAD’s Harsimrat Badal by a thin margin of over 21,000 votes, he lost by about 3743 votes in Manpreet Singh Badal’s Bathinda (Urban) Assembly segment.
Amarinder added: “We will see what happened in Bathinda. When my son (Raninder Singh) had contested in 2009 Lok Sabha, he had led this Assembly segment with a margin of 32,000 votes from the city.”
In 2017, when Manpreet had won this Assembly seat, his victory margin was nearly 18,480 votes. But in the current election results, SAD is led this constituency by 3743 votes.
Even in Budhlada, where constituency in-charge is Ranjit Kaur Bhatti, who is also supporter of Manpreet Badal, SAD’s lead was 8,524 which has baffled Congressmen. In 2014, SAD’s lead from Budhlada was about 3,400 votes.
Congress was also expecting a lead from Mansa which too is an urban area by nearly 15,000 votes. However, it managed only 3,158 votes. In 2014, Congress had got a lead of nearly 20,000 votes from Mansa.
The factor of Nazar Singh Manshahia joining Congress also did not work well in Mansa as Manshahia had won with over 20,000 votes in 2017, but he could not get them converted to Congress.
From PWD Minister Vijay Inder Singla’s Sangrur segment, AAP leader Bhagwant Mann won by about 18,843 votes and Congress candidate Kewal Singh Dhillon lost. His defeat is set to reflect on Amarinder, who had promised the high command that this seat would be his responsibility if Dhillon was given the ticket.
Transport Minister Aruna Choudhary, who is an MLA from Dina Nagar in Gurdaspur. Dina Nagar is a part of Gurdaspur Lok Sabha constituency from where PPCC president Sunil Jakhar lost to Sunny Deol. This segment was lost by Congress by 20,522 votes. Rana Sodhi’s Assembly constituency Guru Har Sahai recorded a loss by over 7633 votes.
Hoshiarpur candidate, Dr Raj Kumar Chabbewal, lost in Hoshiarpur Assembly segment by 8804 votes. The segment is represented by Industries Minister Sunder Sham Arora.
Other Punjab Cabinet ministers ensured victory of their candidates. They include Razia Sultana from Malerkotla, having ensured a margin of 12,476 votes, Sadhu Singh Dharamsot from Nabha having delivered the segment by a lead of about 17,000 votes, Brahm Mohindra from Patiala (Rural), having won a margin of about 29,000 for party candidate Preneet Kaur.
In CM’s segment, Preneet Kaur won by about 35,000 votes, in Balbir Sidhu’s Mohali, Manish Tewari won by about 13,000. In Gurdaspur, Jakhar won with a margin of 20,859 from Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa’s constituency, 18,780 from Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa’s constituency.
In Amritsar, all three ministers incluidng OP Soni, Sukh Sarkaria and Navjot Sidhu ensured candidate G S Aujla’s victory. Party candidates also won from Charanjit Channi, Bharat Bhushan Ashu and Gurpreet Singh Kangar’s constitunecies.
But among all these seats, Bathinda (Urban) and Mansa were great upsets for Congress in the Bathinda Lok Sabha constituency, said a Congress worker watching poll updates in Raja Warring’s office.
“In 2014, when I had defeated him (Manpreet), and it was said that I used official machinery because SAD-BJP was in power in the state. But now it was their official machinery and still they lost. It is a slap on the face of Congress,” said SAD’s Harsimrat Badal.
