AAP candidate loses security deposit, blames Phoolka for defeat

Ludhiana: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Professor Tejpal Singh Gill was among the 19 candidates out of 22 who lost their security deposits worth Rs25,000 after declaration of results on Thursday, as they could not manage to secure the minimum required votes in their favour. Gill got only 15,794 votes, whereas to secure the deposit, he needed 1/6th of the total votes polled (10,47,025) — that is, 1.74 lakh votes at least.
After the counting, Gill said: “In Ludhiana, I got far fewer votes, just because of the anger among people of Ludhiana against senior advocate HS Phoolka, who had contested the Lok Sabha elections from here in 2014, and then elected as MLA from Dakha constituency, but he never met the public.” He said it was a challenge for AAP to do campaigning in Dakha constituency, as people were very angry with Phoolka. Gill also blamed Simarjit Bains for deceiving AAP to fulfil his selfish desires.
However, Ravinder Pal Singh — known as Babaji Burgerwale — who got 1,369 votes, spilled his anger on voters, saying they do not support a genuine person, but instead vote for someone who lures them with liquor and money. Nevertheless, he said he was thankful to those who had voted for him.
Out of the 22 candidates in fray for Ludhiana seat, four were from prominent parties, while a few were independents or from some other parties. Independent candidate Mahinder Singh got the least votes (894), while the most number of votes among losers (3,593) went to HSS candidate Davinder Bhagria, after the AAP candidate.
Notably, even during 2014 elections, there were 22 candidates in the fray from Ludhiana, but except four main candidates, 18 others had lost their security deposits.