Punjab election result 2022: With 3 and 2 seats, SAD & BJP all but wiped out

In the worst-ever electoral performance in the 13 Punjab Vidhan Sabha elections held after the reorganisation in 1966, 100-year-old Shiromani Akali Dal could not get to double digit mark, hitting another low this time winning only three seats as compared to 15 seats it had won in the 117-member Vidhan Sabha in 2017 elections. The only SAD candidates who won were Bikram Singh Majithia’s wife Ganieve Kaur (from Majitha), Manpreet Singh Ayali from Dakha and Dr Sukhwinder Singh Sukhi from Banga. SAD won a seat each in Majha, Malwa and Doaba region.

The February 20 elections in Punjab proved their Waterloo for the majority of the big guns, including chief ministerial candidates of Congress and Shiromani Akali, as they were routed by AAP nominees. They included 94-year-old Akali patron and five-time chief minister Parkash Singh Badal who until this election had the distinction of not losing any poll. He lost to Gurmeet Singh Khudian of AAP from Lambi by a margin of 11,396 votes. Such was the scale of AAP wave that SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal also lost badly from his bastion of Jalalabad to AAP candidate Jagdeep Kamboj by 30,930 votes even as it was believed that there was no formidable opponent contesting against him.

Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, riding high on whom the Congress played Dalit card months ahead of elections, lost both from Chamkaur Sahib and Bhadaur, the two constituencies he contested from. Channi lost to Labh Singh Ugoke of AAP by 37,558 votes in Bhadaur and by 7,942 votes to his namesake Charanjit Singh of AAP from Chamkaur Sahib.

Former chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh, who had formed Punjab Lok Congress after parting company with with Congress, also lost to AAP candidate Ajit Pal Singh Kohli from Patiala by 19,873 votes.
Both Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee (PPCC) Navjot Singh Sidhu and powerful Akali leader Bikram Singh Majithia, who were locked in a contest from Amritsar East, lost to Jeevan Jyot Kaur of AAP. Kaur defeated runner-up Sidhu by 6,750 votes.

Congress leader and Punjab Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal lost to Jagroop Singh Gill of AAP from Bathinda Urban by a massive margin of 63,581 votes.

There was a sharp slide in Congress tally from 77 seats in 2017 to 18 in these elections, one seat more than it had won in 1977 elections, when the number of Assembly segments in the state rose to 117 from 104 and the party won 17 seats. In 1997, in worst-ever performance of its political history, the Congress could manage to win only 14 seats.

The BJP too ended up conceding a huge defeat, by winning only two seats, with state BJP president Ashwani Sharma winning from Pathankot and Jangi Lal Mahajan registering victory from Mukerian. In 2017 elections, it had won three seats, while contesting in alliance with the SAD.
SAD’s ally BSP, which had contested 20 seats, could win only one seat.

The biggest setback, however, was for the SAD. Since 2012 elections, when SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal led the party to an unprecedented consecutive victory in the state, there has been a constant decline in the number of seats the party has been managing to win. In 2012, the SAD had won on 56 seats and its then ally BJP 12 seats. By 2017, the SAD could not retain even one third of those seats and ended up a humiliating third with 15 seats.

The SAD rout in 2017 elections had led to revolt by veteran Akali leaders against the functioning of Sukhbir Badal. The voices against him are likely to get shriller. Since 1997, when it won 75 seats, the maximum ever in the Punjab elections by the party, the merely three-seat tally in these elections has literally left the SAD irrelevant in Punjab politics.

SAD’s vote share dropped from 25.2 per cent in 2017 to around 18.4 per cent in this election. In 1997, SAD’s vote share was 37.64 per cent.

The Congress too was hit hard by AAP storm in Punjab. In 1992 elections (SAD had boycotted those elections), the Congress had gone on to win 87 seats. In 2002, when the Congress formed the government and Amarinder Singh became the CM, the party won 62 seats. In 2007 and 2012, it won 44 and 46 seats, respectively. With the results on Thursday, it is for the third time in the Congress’s electoral history in Punjab elections that it got less than 20 seats.

As far as the BJP is concerned, the saffron party’s worst-ever political performance was in 1980 when it could win only one seat. From 2007, when it won 19 seats, there has been a constant slide for BJP as well. In 2012, the saffron party won 12 seats and in 2017, only three seats.