Tide turns in Gurdaspur

Ravi Dhaliwal
Tribune News Service
Gurdaspur/Pathankot, Feb 17

The BJP was decimated in the Gurdaspur parliamentary constituency, comprising the revenue districts of Pathankot and Gurdaspur, as it won just 16 of 196 seats in the civic body polls.

In Batala, the Congress won 35 of 50 wards and the BJP, which incidentally had controlled the outgoing House, won just four. The SAD won six wards and AAP just three.

Observers claim developmental projects, particularly those pertaining to the construction of new roads and widening of existing ones, building of three strategically important bridges on the Hansli drain and laying of interlocking tiles within the walled city swayed the electorate in favour of the Congress.

Sukhdeep Singh Teja, tipped to be the first-ever Mayor of the ‘steel town’, won by a whopping 2,470 votes. Cabinet Minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa’s candidates won 12 of the 13 seats in the Fatehgarh Churian MC polls.

In Pathankot, the hometown of state BJP chief Ashwani Sharma, the Congress bagged 37 seats of total of 50. The BJP won 12 seats, 22 less than what it won in outgoing dispensation. It’s a major setback for the party as it had a “large committed vote bank of traders and shopkeepers who were traditional party voters”. The saffron party found itself facing the wrath of the residents over the farm laws.

In Gurdaspur, the Congress won all 29 wards. This is seen as a setback for two-time MLA and Gurdaspur SAD chief Gurbachan Singh Babbehali who had visited almost all wards to drum up support.