Ravi Dhaliwal
Tribune News Service
Gurdaspur, February 17
The Congress annihilated all opposition as it virtually steamrolled its way past the mainline political outfits —the SAD, BJP and AAP — to win all 29 seats at stake in the polls to the Gurdaspur municipal council.
All 29 candidates were handpicked by MLA Barindermeet Singh Pahra. He had sought votes on the basis of developmental projects carried out in the past four years by his party.
Two-time SAD MLA and president of the Gurdaspur district SAD unit Gurbachan Singh Babbehali finds himself in the doldrums as his party failed to win even a single seat. He had been carrying out extensive campaigns for his candidates in all wards.
Cong MLA’s brother, Baljit Singh Pahra, who had contested from Ward No. 2, won unopposed. Sources say the decks have been cleared for him to become the MC president.
The dice rolled favourably for the Congress and no opposition party candidate even came close to the Congress candidates as its nominees won ward after ward with ease. The Akalis were reduced to non-entities. In Ward No. 17, where the SAD (urban unit) has its party head office, the outfit could not even find a candidate to contest. If these results are any barometer, the writing is on the wall for the opposition parties. “They will have to pull up their socks if they have to put up a fight in the 2022 Assembly polls,” said a minister.
The BJP was confident of winning at least half a dozen wards but as things stand this confidence turned out to be misplaced. The AAP, which ran largely its campaign on social media sites, too failed to open its account.
In Dinanagar, the home borough of Cabinet minister Aruna Chaudhury, the Congress won 14 of the 15 seats. The Qadian municipal council saw a fight. Here, the Akalis won seven seats while the Congress bagged six.
In Fatehgarh Churian, where Cabinet minister and sitting MLA Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa’s writ runs large, the Congress bagged 12 of the 13 seats. For long, the minister was focusing on both Batala (municipal corporation) and Fatehgarh Churian civic bodies. He has triumphed in both and is now all set to make his loyalist Sukhdeep Singh Teja as the first ever Mayor of Batala.
Incidentally, Teja won by the largest margin of votes recorded by any candidate in the Gurdaspur parliamentary constituency. He garnered 65 per cent of the total votes cast in Ward No. 30 and won by a whopping margin of 2,470 votes.
In Dhariwal, buoyed by local MLA Fateh Jung Bajwa’s support, the Congress won nine of the 13 seats. The legislator had campaigned for nearly a fortnight here.
Sri Hargobindpur turned out to be a revelation. Of the 11 wards, Independent candidates won in six. The Congress fared so poorly that it managed just three seats. This development does not augur well for sitting Congress MLA Balwinder Laddi in the run up to the 2022 Assembly poll.
The BJP, facing the wrath of the voters post farm laws, won just four out of a total of 146 wards in the district.
Congress scores 29/29 in Gurdaspur municipal council poll
{$excerpt:n}
