Shwait Malik defends BJP loss from Amritsar, says win ratio better than other parties

Punjab BJP chief Tuesday defended the party’s poor showing in the Amritsar Lok Sabha constituency, his home turf, from where then Union Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs Hardeep Puri lost, saying that the party won two of the three seats it contested and its winning ratio was better than any other political outfit.

“Out of the three seats contested, we won two (Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur). And our success rate was 67 per cent. You can compare our performance with any party, be it Congress or the AAP. Our success ratio is better,” he said.

Puri, a Rajya Sabha member, was defeated by Congress candidate and sitting MP Gurjeet Singh Aujla by a margin of 99,626 votes. The BJP candidate could not get a lead in any of the five assembly segments of Amritsar city, which are contested by the party.

“As far as question of Amritsar is concerned, our performance has improved significantly. Whatever was the result, we are grateful to the voters,” Malik said.

He was addressing media on the sidelines of a meeting of the state core committee of the party.

Asked why he could not ensure Puri’s victory from Amritsar as he (Malik) belonged to the city and had been the Mayor too, the BJP chief reiterated that the party’s performance had improved. When a television reporter persisted in asking him about the loss in Amritsar, Malik said “that’s all” and left in a huff.

“I am not the president of Amritsar. I am president of Punjab. You tell us which party fared better than us. We won two out of three seats contested,” Malik later said.

This is the third successive defeat of the BJP from Amritsar constituency. Navjot Singh Sidhu, as BJP candidate had, thrice won the seat for the party – in 2004, 2007 and 2009. In 2014, BJP had fielded Arun Jaitley. He lost to Congress’s Capt Amarinder Singh by a margin of more than one lakh votes. The party again lost the bypoll to the seat in 2017 after Amarinder Singh vacated the seat. Then, Congress’s Gurjeet Singh Aujla had defeated BJP’s Rajinder Mohan Chhina.

Speaking to The Indian Express, a senior leader of Punjab BJP, who did not want to be identified, said that there was a race to take credit of the Hoshiarpur and Gurdaspur wins of the party but no one was ready to bear the burden of Puri’s defeat.

“Former state president Kamal Sharma has been giving statements that BJP should get more assembly seats in the arrangement that it has with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) because its vote share has gone up. However, the fact of the matter is that had Sunny Deol not been fielded from Gurdaspur, the party did not have any decent candidate to field. Even Deol won by a margin, which is much less than the previous victory margin of late Vinod Khanna,” he said.

Party insiders say that there are several claimants for the post of state president and many leaders are anticipating that Malik would soon be removed from his post as he is a Rajya Sabha member. “Party high command knows that Som Parkash won from Hoshiarpur because of his own good image and after a tough fight with Raj Kumar Chabbewal of Congress. All these claims of good performance may fall flat if now the party is unable to win the bypoll to Phagwara assembly seat vacated by Som Parkash,” he added.

Malik, however, said that while BJP could win only three assembly seats only out of 23 that it contested in 2017 assembly polls, the Lok Sabha poll data showed that it was leading in 14 assembly segments. Answering a question on seeking larger chunk of seats, Punjab BJP chief said it was not the time discuss it.

As per the seat sharing formula between BJP and SAD, BJP contests from three Lok Sabha out of a total of 13 and 23 out of 117 assembly seats while the rest are fought by SAD.