Chandigarh, 10 March 2022: The results of the Punjab Assembly elections have proved to be a tsunami for the established parties. In the tsunami that came in favor of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), only eight years old, such stalwarts, who were being said to be invincible, have been demolished.
The results have made it clear that Bhagwant Mann will be the new Chief Minister of Punjab. He will take oath at Khatkar Kalan, the land of Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh. The people of Punjab trusted Arvind Kejriwal more than Navjot Singh Sidhu’s Punjab model.
The Aam Aadmi Party won 92 out of 117 seats in the state. Although the party fell one short of the 93 seats the Shiromani Akali Dal and Bharatiya Janata Party alliance won in 1997, it would be called the biggest victory for a single party. Earlier, Congress had achieved a similar victory in the 2017 election by winning 77 seats.
The ruling Congress came second, which had to be satisfied with 18 seats. Shiromani Akali Dal has won four, BJP two and is an independent candidate. In the 2017 elections, AAP won 20 seats, Akali Dal got 15, BJP got three seats and Lok Insaaf Party won two seats.
Aman Arora won the biggest victory, won by 75277 votes
Aam Aadmi Party’s tsunami in Punjab can be gauged from the margin of 92 candidates who won. Most of the candidates won by margin of more than 20 thousand but the biggest margin came from Aman Arora’s Sunam. He wins by a margin of 75277 thousand from his nearest rival Jaswinder Singh Dhiman of Congress
Today’s results have made all the veterans to lick the dust. These veterans who remained invincible, Parkash Singh Badal, Sukhbir Singh Badal, Bikram Singh Majithia, Captain Amarinder Singh, BB Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, Parminder Singh Dhindsa, who won six consecutive times, Speaker Rana KP Singh, Congress President Navjot Singh Sidhu, Manpreet Badal All of them have lost their seats by huge margins.
Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi has lost both his seats Chamkaur Sahib and Bhadaur. Only six ministers of Channi cabinet Sukhjinder Randhawa, Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa, Aruna Chaudhary, Pargat Singh, Sukhbinder Singh Sarkaria, Amarinder Singh Raja Vading and Rana Gurjit Singh could save their seats. 11 ministers including the chief minister could not save seats.
AAP, which gave the slogan ‘Ek chance Kejriwal ko, ek mauka Bhagwant Mann ko’, not only raised the issue of good governance in Delhi and reforms in government school education but also highlighted its achievements. At the same time, raising the issue of transport and sand mafia, unemployment, red tape in Punjab, along with the ruling Congress, attacked Shiromani Akali Dal fiercely. Kejriwal gave the face of the Chief Minister in Punjab in the form of Bhagwant Mann.
Being clean and spotless, Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal did not have any weapon to directly attack Mann. Although both the parties definitely attacked Mann for his alcohol habit, in return AAP had the issue of ED raids and caught Rs 10 crore at the relative of Congress Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, then Akali Dal For Sukhbir Badal, the face of the Chief Minister’s post, transport and sacrilege was a weapon of scandal.
Be it Shiromani Akali Dal or Congress, all during their elections put more emphasis on rejecting Kejriwal’s Delhi model. Despite this, the broom in Punjab was such that leaders like Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi, Navjot Singh Sidhu, Captain Amarinder Singh, Parkash Singh Badal, Sukhbir Badal collapsed.