Deol lost in 5 SAD segments, alliance under strain

Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Gurdaspur, May 26

BJP’s Sunny Deol swept past all four Hindu-dominated Assembly seats with ease, while rammed into a wall in the segments held by the Akali Dal, a development that has put the relationship between the two alliance partners under strain.

In the seat-sharing agreement, BJP holds four seats, while five have been allocated to the SAD.

Bhoa, Sujanpur, Pathankot and Dinanagar — all Hindu-dominated seats — are with the BJP. The SAD seats, where Jat Sikh voters hold sway, are Dera Baba Nanak, Gurdaspur, Fatehgarh Churian, Batala and Qadian.

The BJP took leads of nearly 30,000 votes each from Bhoa, Sujanpur and Pathankot, while it led by 21,000 votes from Dinanagar.

Among the SAD segments, Deol lost Fatehgarh Churian by 20,800 votes and Dera Baba Nanak by 18,700. In Batala, Qadian and Gurdaspur, he managed to take slender leads of 956, 1,183 and 1,149 votes, respectively, which is a far cry from the victory margins registered by him in the areas under the control of his party.

This, in effect, means that the Akalis failed to come all out in support of the actor.

A top BJP functionary said they had sent this particular information to the party headquarters in New Delhi after studying the voting pattern. “The alliance is definitely under strain. We depended on the Akalis to get us through in their seats but we have been ditched by them. I shudder to think what could have happened to Deol had he failed to take substantial leads in the BJP strongholds. Sunil Jakhar could have easily turned the tables on us,” averred a senior BJP leader actively involved in the campaign.

“The BJP says that Deol rode on the Modi wave, which is an erroneous belief. Had there been a wave, the BJP would have made a clean sweep of the SAD seats too. The voters have actually given a thumbs-up to Capt Amarinder Singh’s policies in these segments,” said Raman Bahl, PPCC general secretary and Chairman of the Punjab Subordinate Services Selection Board.

BJP leaders claim that it is high time for the party to reconsider the alliance. “We could have done better without the help of the SAD. At least in two seats — Fatehgarh Churian and Dera Baba Nanak — we could have reduced Deol’s margin of defeat going all alone. We are taking up the alliance issue at the highest levels,” said a senior BJP leader.