In Punjab assembly bypolls, Congress bags 3 seats, Akali one

Of the three seats it won, the Congress had the biggest victory margin in Phagwara where its candidate Balwinder Singh Dhaliwal, a retired IAS officer, trounced Rajesh Bagha of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by 26,116 votes.

In an emphatic endorsement, the ruling Congress won three of the four seats in the assembly byelections in Punjab, the results of which were declared on Thursday.

Congress candidate Balwinder Singh Dhaliwal (C) alongwith cabinet minister Sunder Sham Arora (R) and former MLAJoginder Singh Mann making victory sign at Phagwara, Punjab, October 24, 2019. (Pardeep Pandit/HT)

The party won the Jalalabad, Mukerian and Phagwara assembly seats but lost in Dakha. The SAD dealt the blow to the Congress in Dakha assembly constituency where its candidate Manpreet Singh Ayali defeated the latter’s Sandeep Singh Sandhu by a margin of 14,672 votes.

Of the three seats it won, the Congress had the biggest victory margin in Phagwara where its candidate Balwinder Singh Dhaliwal, a retired IAS officer, trounced Rajesh Bagha of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by 26,116 votes. The biggest surprise was in the Akali stronghold of Jalalabad though. Raminder Singh Awla of the Congress won the seat by a margin of 16,633 votes, defeating SAD’s Raj Singh Dibbipur. The seat was won by SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal thrice in a row earlier and it fell vacant as he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Ferozepur seat in April-May 2019.

The ruling party also retained Mukerian by a margin of 3,440 votes as its nominee Indu Bala, widow of Congress MLA Rajnish Kumar Babbi whose death necessitated the byelection, defeated BJP’s Jangi Lal Mahajan.