Ludhiana may come up with surprise in a close triangular contest
Monday, 29/04/2019
https://www.brightpunjabexpress.com/index.php/2019/04/29/ludhiana-may-come-up-with-surprise-in-a-close-triangular-contest/
Ludhiana : Ludhiana is heading for a closely fought battle between the sitting MP Ravneet Singh Bittu of the Congress, Maheshinder Singh Grewal of the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bhartiya Janata Party and Simarjit Singh Bains of the People’s Democratic Alliance.
Of the nine assembly segments falling within the Ludhiana parliamentary constituency, five are with the Congress, two with the Aam Aadmi Party and two with the Lok Insaf Party of the Bains brothers, which is now part of the PDA. The Akali-BJP alliance had drawn a blank in 2017.
During the 2017 Vidhan Sabha elections, LIP was in alliance with the AAP. Now LIP has parted ways with the AAP and has aligned with the Punjab Ekta Party of Sukhpal Khaira, who has broken away with the AAP. AAP has fielded Prof Tejpal, a young face of the party. However, AAP is not even a pale shadow of what it was during 2014 and 2017 elections.
In 2014 General Elections, Bittu of the Congress defeated HS Phoolka of the AAP by a slim margin of about 20,000 votes. While Bittu polled 3,00459 votes, Phoolka got 2,80,750 votes. Manpreet Ayali of the Akali-BJP combine got 2,56,544 while Simarjit Bains, who contested independently at that time got 2,10,917 votes.
With AAP virtually wiped out, this time it is going to be a triangular contest. One of the two AAP candidates in the Ludhiana parliamentary constituency, HS Phoolka has resigned from the Vidhan Sabha but his resignation has not been accepted and he continues to enjoy all the perks entitled to an MLA. He has already vanished from the scene. This leaves only Jagraon with the AAP where the MLA Sarbjit Kaur Manuke is very active and had polled 61,221 in 2017 Vidhan Sabha elections.
Compared to the 2014 General Elections, AAP and LIP candidates together polled maximum 4,02,476 votes in the nine segments followed by the Congress candidates who polled 3,93,474 votes. The Akali-BJP candidates were far behind polling just 3,01,786 votes together and the alliance did not win any segment.
2019 is neither 2014 nor 2017. The situation on the ground level has changed. AAP is virtually nowhere on the scene. The massive anti-incumbency and anger against the Akalis has either vanished or has subsided to a large extent. There is no Congress wave like it happened in 2017, as there is no threat of the radical-inclined AAP. Besides, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh is not a factor in these elections to give a decisive edge to the Congress.
The Congress candidate has to confront the double incumbency. Firstly, his own for being an MP for five years , although he has actually been an MP for ten years but represented Anandpur Sahib in the previous term, as also the anti-incumbency that usually crops up against the ruling party after two years.
Although the Akali-BJP candidate Maheshinder Singh Grewal may be enjoying a good personal image, but the alliance he is representing is fighting for its own survival in Punjab. Grewal is hoping against hope that the Modi-factor, which is hardly visible in Punjab, may help it to some extent.
Bains is riding high on the 2014 and 2017 arithmetic that gives him an edge. But he has also already peaked. It is quite unlikely that he may be able to repeat the 2014 performance this time. As of now, while he remains a serious and powerful contender, much will depend as how the campaign shapes up. The Congress and the Akali-BJP are likely to intensify their campaign from the first week of May with many bigwigs and star campaigners likely to descend on the city after May 10, which is likely to disturb the existing electoral arithmetic and eventually the final outcome also.
