Reviving itself in the border state after a decade, the Congress party on Saturday swept the Punjab assembly elections in a victory powered by veteran Amarinder Singh, who is set to return as Chief Minister.
The Congress, which won 77 seats in the 117-member assembly, worsted the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party combine. The party's win also turned on its head the BJP's 'Congress Mukt Bharat' (Congress free India) slogan.
The almost two-thirds majority for the Congress belied the exit poll predictions that claimed a tough fight and even a hung house in the state.
Having won Punjab for his party on his 75th birthday, Amarinder Singh said his first priority would be to eradicate drugs from the state.
Tomorrow I will submit my resignation to the Governor: Parkash Singh Badal #ElectionResults #Punjab pic.twitter.com/XWt5OQUOnp
— ANI (@ANI_news) March 11, 2017
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose BJP was piggy-backing to power with the Shiromani Akali Dal in Punjab for the past decade, spoke to Amarinder Singh and congratulated him on the victory.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the new entrant in the Punjab political scene, had run a high-voltage campaign in the state and claimed it could win up to 100 seats. However, it got only 20 seats, while its ally, Lok Insaaf Party, won two seats.
The AAP beat the Akali Dal to emerge at second spot, and will be the main opposition in the new assembly.
We will discuss the reasons in the core committee meeting & analyse each aspect of our performance in the elections: Prakash Singh Badal pic.twitter.com/jnSI6VEvn1
— ANI (@ANI_news) March 11, 2017
The Shiromani Akali Dal, which ruled Punjab for 10 years with alliance partner Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), finished third with 15 seats. The BJP won just three seats.
Ten ministers, including two from the BJP, in the Parkash Singh Badal government were defeated.
Congress candidate and youth leader Gurjeet Singh Aujla won the Amritsar Lok Sabha seat comprehensively by 199,189 votes. The by-election was held along with the assembly polls.
"The people of Punjab have given us a big mandate. Our first priority will be to eradicate drugs from Punjab. I have vowed to finish drugs within four weeks," a visibly happy Amarinder Singh, who was Chief Minister from 2002-07, told the media.
He was non-committal on having cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu as Deputy Chief Minister in the new government.
PM Narendra Narendra Modi speaks to Captain Amarinder Singh, congratulates him on the win in Punjab #ElectionResults pic.twitter.com/2ZYPcoPj9c
— ANI (@ANI_news) March 11, 2017
"That will be decided by Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi. All ministers will be decided by the party leadership."
Outgoing Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, a five-time Chief Minister, accepted defeat and said he will resign on Sunday.
Badal, 89, the oldest Chief Minister in the country, said: "I am grateful to the people of Punjab for giving me an opportunity to serve them. I am fully satisfied with all the things I was able to do. I seek forgiveness for any mistakes."
On the Lambi assembly seat, where Amarinder Singh had challenged Badal on his (Badal's) home turf, Badal won by 22,770 votes. But Amarinder Singh won his traditional Patiala Urban seat by over 52,400 votes.
The Chief Minister's son Sukhbir Singh Badal, the Akali Dal President, won in Jalalabad over AAP's Bhagwant Singh Mann by a margin of 18,500 votes.
Cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu, who won from the Amritsar-east assembly seat by over 42,000 votes, dubbed the Congress victory as its "revival" and blamed the Akali rout on its leadership's "arrogance and turning the treasury into personal property".
#ResultsWithNDTV | That’s a wrap from us. We’ll leave you with a look at the final tally pic.twitter.com/xAF0UqmXk2
— NDTV (@ndtv) March 11, 2017
Sidhu, who left the BJP to join the Congress last year, also attacked Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal. "Kejriwal had wrong intentions. It is a huge defeat for him."
Prominent AAP winners included Sukhpal Singh Khaira, H.S. Phoolka and Kanwar Sandhu. The AAP also finished second in 26 constituencies.
Prominent losers included former Chief Minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal (Congress), Sunil Jakhar (Congress), Ludhiana MP Ravneet Singh Bittu (Congress), Punjab ministers Adaish Pratap Singh Kairon, Tota Singh, Sikander Singh Maluka and former Army chief, Gen J.J. Singh.
The Congress ended up with a vote share of 38.5 per cent from the votes polled in the election. The Akali Dal got 25.3 per cent while its ally BJP got 5.3 per cent. The AAP finished with 23.8 per cent of the vote.
IN PUNJAB POLITICAL WAR, A CAPTAIN GETS THE BETTER OF A GENERAL
It was a battlefield of a different kind where a former Army Captain defeated a former Army General.
In the high-profile battle for the Patiala-Urban assembly seat, Captain Amarinder Singh of the Congress got the better of former Army chief Gen. J.J. Singh, fielded by the Shiromani Akali Dal.
Double Celebration:@capt_amarinder turns 75 with euphoric #Congress victory in #Punjab as party sweeps #AssemblyPolls @INCIndia @OfficeOfRG pic.twitter.com/cHufr9LvIr
— Punjab Congress (@punjabpcc) March 11, 2017
While Amarinder won the seat by a huge margin of over 52,000 votes over his nearest rival Balbir Singh of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the General fared badly in his first political outing.
The former General not only lost the election, finishing a poor third, but even forfeited his security deposit.
The ex-General, who also remained Governor of Arunachal Pradesh, polled only 11,677 votes, compared to Amarinder's 72,586 votes.
"A victorious Captain Amarinder Singh on Saturday came home to a grand welcome from his family members and constituents in Patiala, from where he has created military history by becoming the first Captain to defeat a General," Amarinder's spokesman said in Patiala, 60 km from here.
"General J.J. Singh failed even to save his security deposit, clearly underlining the huge popularity of the Punjab Congress president in his hometown," the spokesman said.
Amarinder, who is being credited with scripting the landslide Congress victory in Punjab, was greeted by a cacophony of drum beats and slogans by enthusiastic crowds that had lined up to welcome him in hometown Patiala.
#PunjabElection2017 | Here are the final results. Congress gets 77 seats, SAD-BJP bags 18, AAP gets 20 seats and others get 2 @htTweets pic.twitter.com/Y2OCJPP2o8
— HT Punjab (@HTPunjab) March 11, 2017
Flanked by his wife Preneet Kaur, Amarinder visited the Gurdwara and temple at Burj Baba Ala Singh at the historic Qila Mubarak.
Hundreds of supporters of the Congress leaders gathered outside the illuminated Moti Bagh Palace to mark the victory and also to celebrate Amarinder's 75th birthday, which fell on Saturday.
At 75, the scion of the erstwhile Patiala royalty has become the longest living male member of his family.
हम अपने मूल्यों और विश्वास के प्रति दृढ़ और प्रतिबद्ध हैं, सभी लोगों का दिल जीतने के लिए हमारा संघर्ष जारी रहेगा pic.twitter.com/zAoJX6h3gs
— INC India (@INCIndia) March 11, 2017
Amarinder is likely to take over the reins of the state next week.
MAJOR WINNERS IN ASSEMBLY ELECTIONS
Following is the list of major winners in the 2017 assembly elections in five states:
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, 89, won Lambi assembly seat by a margin of over 22,000 votes defeating the Congress party's chief ministerial candidate Amarinder Singh.
Amarinder Singh won Patiala-Urban constituency by 52,407 votes defeating his Aam Aadmi Party rival Balbir Singh.
Outgoing Punjab Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal won Jalalabad seat by 18,500 votes and defeated AAP's Bhagwant Singh Mann.
Congress' Navjot Singh Sidhu won Amritar (East) seat by 42,809 votes and defeated a BJP candidate.
Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh of the Congress party won in Thoubal constituency comfortably by over 15,000 votes. Rights activist Irom Sharmila, who was also contesting from Thoubal, got fewer than 90 votes.
In Uttar Pradesh, the Samajwadi Party's Shivpal Yadav won by 52,616 votes from Jaswantnagar seat.
The SP's Azam Khan won by 46,842 votes from Rampur and defeated a BJP candidate.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh's son and BJP candidate from Noida Pankaj Singh won by 1,04,016 votes and defeated the SP's Sunil Choudhary.
The BJP's Rita Bahuguna Joshi defeated Mulayam Singh Yadav's daughter-in-law Aparna Yadav by 33,796 votes in the Lucknow cantonment constituency.
BJP National Secretary Siddharth Nath Singh won from Allahabad (West) defeating the SP candidate by 25,336 votes.
The BSP's gangster-turned-politician Mukhtar Ansari won by 86,98 votes.
Garima Singh of the BJP defeated Gayatri Prasad Prajapati of the SP by a margin of 5,065 votes in Amethi Sadar seat. Amita Singh of the Congress was at third spot.
Independent candidate Aman Mani Tripathi won Nautanwa seat by defeating his nearest rival the SP's Kunwar Kaushal Kishore Singh by a margin of 32,256 votes.
BJP SWEEPS UP IN HISTORIC MANDATE
The BJP swept to an unprecedented three-fourth majority in Uttar Pradesh and bagged Uttarakhand too and was neck and neck with the Congress in Goa and Manipur in the country's biggest mandate since the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. The Congress returned to power in Punjab after a 10-year gap.
A euphoric Bharatiya Janata Party called it a "historic" verdict that would make a major impact on Indian politics even as the Congress admitted it was stunned by the scale of the verdict in favour of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
From being the third largest group in the 403-member Uttar Pradesh assembly, the BJP, powered by an aggressive campaign spearheaded by Modi, catapulted to winning a whopping 312 seats -- a never-before showing by any party in the country's most populous state.
Thanks to people of five states and our karyakartas for their overwhelming support to ensure stupendous performance of BJP in #Elections2017 pic.twitter.com/KQvys2ovE9
— BJP (@BJP4India) March 11, 2017
The victory left the ruling Samajwadi Party and its ally Congress punctured with just 54 seats while the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) was left a pathetic 19 seats. While Samajwadi Party leader and Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav promptly resigned, BSP leader Mayawati attributed the rout to the Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) which she said were manipulated.
"The historic mandate given to the BJP will give a new direction to Indian politics. It will end the politics of caste, dynasty (parivarvaad) and appeasement," BJP President Amit Shah said. The BJP, he added, would form governments in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur.
The Congress suffered an equally humiliating defeat in neighbouring Uttarakhand too. The BJP ousted it from power, winning 57 of the 70 seats, some of the victors being disgruntled Congress veterans who had joined the saffron outfit.
The Congress was left with just 11 legislators, with outgoing Chief Minister Harish Rawat losing both the seats he contested, one narrowly, to his BJP opponents.
अनेक ग़रीब कल्याण योजनाओं का क्रियान्वयन कर श्री नरेन्द्र मोदी आज़ादी के बाद देश के सर्वाधिक लोकप्रिय नेता बनकर उभरे हैं : श्री @AmitShah pic.twitter.com/658nGTgTDp
— BJP (@BJP4India) March 11, 2017
"It is a monumental setback. We are disappointed with Uttar Pradesh," Congress spokesman Sanjay Jha said. Added Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit: "Our party is looking confused."
But other party leaders rushed to defend Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, saying he alone must not be blamed for the rout in Uttar Pradesh, where the Congress, having become in recent decades an also-ran, aligned with the Samajwadi Party just before the staggered assembly election.
BJP-ruled Goa, however, appeared headed for a hung assembly, with both the Congress and the BJP claiming they will form the government in the coastal state.
The Congress inched towards becoming the single largest party in the 40-member house winning 17 seats while the BJP had netted 13. The balance of power now lay in the hands of smaller parties including Goa Forward and the MGP. The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was routed.
With 28 winners, the Congress also led the BJP (21) in the troubled northeastern state of Manipur that it rules. But with both groups falling short of a majority in the 60-member house, smaller parties will play a key role in government formation.
In Uttar Pradesh, the BJP's success rate enveloped both urban and rural areas and appeared to demolish traditional caste equations. BJP candidates won in all major cities including Lucknow, Allahabad, Kanpur and Varanasi, Modi's Lok Sabha constituency.
While the Congress fared not so badly in Rae Bareli, it took a drubbing in Amethi, Rahul Gandhi's Lok Sabha seat.
BJP leader Yogi Adityanath told IANS: "Good work done by the Modi government and (BJP President) Amit Shah's strategy has paid dividends."
