Panjab Elections: INC Wins 7/13 Seats

In a four-cornered contest in Panjab, the INC won seven of thirteen seats against the ruling AAP as well as BJP and SAD. The high-stakes elections in Panjab even saw two independents register victories. AAP won three seats, SAD won one seat, and the BJP drew a blank. The INC appears to have bounced back in the state's political landscape after suffering a defeat at the hands of the AAP in the 2022 Panjab Assembly elections. This election, the prominent winners are INC's Charanjit Singh Channi (Jalandhar), Amrinder Singh Raja Warring (Ludhiana), Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa (Gurdaspur), and one-time earlier Member of Parliament (MP) Dharamvira Gandhi (Patiala); SAD’s three-time MP Harsimrat Kaur Badal (Bathinda); AAP's Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer (Sangrur); and two independents Amritpal Singh (Khadoor Sahib) and Sarbajeet Singh Khalsa (Faridkot). Major upsets in the poll outcome included BJP’s four-time MP Preneet Kaur, two-time MP Ravneet Singh Bittu, Sushil Rinku, one-time MP Hans Raj Hans, and Taranjit Singh Sandhu. It also included; SAD’s (Amritsar) Simranjit Singh Mann, INC's Sukhpal Singh Khaira and SAD's three-time MP Prem Singh Chandumajra and Daljit Singh Cheema. The INDIA bloc allies INC and AAP contested separately, against each other, while the BJP and SAD fought separately on their own for the first time since 1996. The result is a setback to the BJP, which even failed to retain its traditional seats, Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur. With over a quarter of all votes for INC and AAP, the difference between them is very slim. INC got 26.30% and AAP got 26.02%. BJP with 18.56% votes edged SAD with 13.42% votes to fourth place. In 2019, the 13-seat distribution was as follows: INC, SAD, BJP (SAD ally), and AAP won 8, 2, 2, and 1, respectively. AAP’s only seat was Sangrur then.