Punjab Assembly will have no Badal family member in 30 years
New Delhi: The 2022 assembly elections held in the five states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa, Uttarakhand, and Manipur have witnessed some heavyweights losing to arguably minnows in the battle for states.
In a major upset in Punjab elections, most of the stalwarts had to bite the dust. Those who lost the polls are SAD patron Parkash Singh Badal, Capt Amarinder Singh, Sukhbir Badal, and Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi. Amarinder who contested Patiala as Punjab Lok Congress candidate in alliance with the BJP lost to Ajitpal Singh Kohli of AAP.
Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi lost both from Chamkaur Sahib and Bhadaur. SAD chief Sukhbir Singh Badal lost in Jalalabad. From Amritsar East, PPCC president Navjot Singh Sidhu and senior SAD leader Bikram Majithia lost to AAP’s Jeevan Jot Kaur.
Manpreet Singh Badal of INC loses from Bathinda Urban seat. All Badal family members who contested the 2022 state elections have lost the polls from their respective strongholds. The last time the Badals were out of the assembly was during the 1992 elections when Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) boycotted the state assembly elections.
Not just the immediate family, most of the Badal family’s relatives have also lost to AAP candidates. Bikram Singh Majithia, Sukhbir Badal’s brother-in-law, lost from the Amritsar East constituency to AAP’s Jeevan Jyot Kaur – who Arvind Kejriwal said is just an ordinary party volunteer.
In a big upset in Uttarakhand, Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami has lost the election from the Khatima assembly constituency to Congress candidate Bhuwan Chandra Kapri. The 73-year-old Congress leader and former Uttarakhand chief minister, Harish Rawat lost the Lalkuan seat by a huge margin.
Even as the BJP returned to power in Uttar Pradesh with a thumping win, the party lost some of its big names, including its Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya and some prominent ministers. Maurya lost to Pallavi Patel, the Apna Dal (Kamerawadi) leader who fought on an SP ticket, in Sirathu. He lost by 7,337 votes.
In Kushinagar’s Fazilanagar, turncoat Swami Maurya lost to BJP’s Surendra Khushwaha by more than 30,000 votes. Swami spent a career taking on the SP — for two decades as a member of the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) and the last five years in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as a Cabinet minister in the Yogi Adityanath-led government. Congress state president Ajay Kumar Lallu fell short of a hat trick after losing to BJP’s Asim Kumar in Tamkuhi Raj constituency.
