Former Punjab Chief Minister and Congress candidate Charanjit Singh Channi (60), who lost both the seats he contested in the February 2022 Assembly elections, scripted victory from the Jalandhar (reserved) Lok Sabha constituency on Saturday after defeating his nearest rival by 1,75,993 votes in a four-way battle involving three turncoats from the major political parties.
Channi was leading by a comfortable margin in the initial rounds against his nearest rival and sitting MP Sushil Rinku of the BJP, who switched sides twice in a year.
Pawan Kumar Tinu of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Mohinder Singh Kaypee of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) were among the candidates in the fray, both having switched loyalties in the run-up to the polls.
Santokh Singh Chaudhary of the Congress won from Jalandhar in 2019, but in the May 2023 by-elections necessitated by his sudden demise, his wife Karamjit Kaur was defeated by Congress MLA-turned-AAP candidate Rinku, who won by a margin of 58,691 votes.
At that time, AAP wrested the Jalandhar seat from the Congress in the high-stake bypoll, ending the party’s unbeaten run in the Dalit stronghold since 1999.
This time, the Congress reposed faith in three-time legislator Channi, the state's first Dalit Chief Minister, to woo the Dalit votes that constitute 32 per cent population in the state, the country's largest.
Channi, a former handball player who led the party in the 2022 Assembly polls, entered politics at the age of 20. He replaced Amarinder Singh as the Chief Minister on September 19, 2021, as a stopgap arrangement before the state went to the polls. He was the first non-Jat Sikh CM in the state since 1977.
The victory of Channi -- who won the Chamkaur Sahib Assembly seat in Ropar district thrice in a row -- from Jalandhar can help the Congress counter the growing influence of AAP in the Malwa region by consolidating the scheduled caste votes.
To recall, Channi courted controversy during campaigning, when he called the recent Poonch terror attack, in which an Indian Air Force (IAF) corporal was killed and four soldiers were injured, an “election stunt” to benefit the BJP.
His remarks drew widespread criticism from the BJP, which accused the Congress of being disrespectful to the soldiers and demanded an apology to the nation.
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