Chandigarh: The ruling party’s vote share has also gone down in Punjab and has witnessed a drop from 42% in the 2022 polls to 16% in present Lok Sabha polls. The election results on Tuesday from the 13 Lok Sabha constituencies in the state are a severe shock for the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab. Punjab vote share results are less than that of the Congress specified as around 26%, which won seven Lok Sabha seats in the state. These parliamentary polls have exhibited a critical mid-term test of the popularity of the AAP in Punjab, which had secured a historic mandate of 92 seats in the 117 state assemblies about two years ago. However, in this election, the AAP won just three: Sangrur, Hoshiarpur and Anandpur Sahib seats, though this is an improvement from the single seat the party won in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and remained short of the ambitious goal of winning all 13 seats expected by Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann.
Bhagwant Maan was hopeful of victory in all 13 Lok sabha constituencies in the state due to various favorable offers including 300 Units electricity free of cost every month but failed to attract voters and was able to win only three seats. The extent of the party’s defeat in Punjab is evident from the fate of nine sitting MLAs, including five cabinet ministers, fielded by the party. All of them, except cabinet minister Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer and Chabbewal MLA Raj Kumar lost polls. Similarly Congress had won eight Lok Sabha seats in 2019 was able to win seven seats in present LOk sabha polls, besides Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) contestant Harsimrat Kaur Badal has been able to get victory fourth time, however SAD candidates have lost their security deposit at 10 seats, except Amritsar and Ferozepur Lok Sabha seats.
However, one major consolation for the AAP is that its vote share in the results is almost equal to that of the Congress (around 26%), which won seven seats in the state. AAP successfully managed to retain Sangrur seat which was previously represented by the chief minister Bhagwant Mann in 2014 and 2019 with a handsome margin from SAD chief Simranjit Singh Mann who won the seat in the June 2022 bypoll.
