Chandigarh, 31/1: In the Punjab Assembly elections, the Congress has announced to field Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi from the second seat. This announcement came at a time when Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who had visited Punjab a few days ago, had said that the party would declare the chief ministerial candidate in the state. After this, the announcement of Channi’s second seat has fueled various speculations. Let us have a look at the aspects related to them…
The Congress leadership has played a big bet by declaring Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi as the candidate from two seats. He has been made a candidate from Chamkaur Sahib as well as from Bhadaur seat of Barnala. Aam Aadmi Party had won in Bhadaur in 2017. Not only this, Barnala district had proved to be a stronghold of AAP (AAP) in the last elections. AAP had won all the three assembly seats in the districts.
Last time you had challenged in Chamkaur Sahib by winning Barnala
Barnala has three assembly constituencies- Barnala, Mahal Kalan and Bhadaur. AAP had won all these three seats in the 2017 assembly elections. In Barnala, Gurmeet Singh Meet Hair of AAP defeated Kewal Singh Dhillon of Congress by 2,432 votes. In Mahal Kalan, Kulwant Singh Pandori of AAP defeated Ajit Singh Shant of Shiromani Akali Dal by a margin of 27,064 votes. Here the Congress got only about 20% of the votes. Whereas in Bhadaur, AAP’s Piermal Singh Dhaula defeated Sant Balvir Singh Ghunas of Shiromani Akali Dal by a margin of 20,784 votes. Here the Congress could not even get 20% of the vote.
AAP had given a strong challenge to the Congress in Chamkaur Sahib in 2017. Charanjit Singh Channi from Congress was the only candidate of Congress at that time. He defeated Charanjit Singh of AAP by 12,308 votes. Channi got around 42% of the votes. While AAP’s Charanjit Singh got close to 33.53%.