11 March,2022 07:31 AM IST | Chandigarh | Diwakar Sharma
AAP’s CM candidate Bhagwant Mann hugs his mother after the results. Pic/PTI
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The Aam Aadmi Party won the Assembly elections in Punjab, long governed by the Congress, with remarkable performances, particularly of its five candidates who defeated some heavyweights in the state. All five winners - Jeevan Jyot Kaur, Ajitpal Singh Kohli, Labh Singh Ugoke, Dr Charanjit Singh and Gurmeet Singh Khudian - come from humble personal and professional backgrounds.
AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal fielded candidates from varied professional backgrounds, including ophthalmologist and farmers, and some of them are first-time contestants and winners in an Assembly election.
Jeevan Jyot Kaur, Ajitpal Singh Kohli, Labh Singh Ugoke, Dr Charanjit Singh and Gurmeet Singh Khudian are the five AAP leaders who dealt a massive blow in the polls to prominent heavyweights in Punjab - outgoing chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi, former CM Captain (retd) Amarinder Singh, Punjab's five-time CM Parkash Singh Badal and state Congress chief Navjot Singh Sidhu. Channi lost both the seats he contested - Chamkaur Sahib and Bhadaur.
37,000
No. of votes by which Ugoke defeated CM Channi
Dr Charanjit Singh defeated the outgoing CM Channi in Chamkaur Sahib, which the latter had represented for the past three terms. The Congress had fielded Channi as the CM candidate, apparently to appease sizeable Dalit votes, but he lost to Dr Singh, an eye surgeon, by a margin of 5,000 votes.
Ajitpal Singh Kohli was up against former CM and Punjab Lok Congress chief Amarinder Singh, Congress' Vishnu Sharma and SAD's Harpal Juneja in Patiala. However, Kohli decimated Amarinder Singh by a margin of nearly 20,000 votes. While Kohli bagged 48,104 votes, two-time CM Amarinder Singh managed to get only 28,231 votes and Juneja stood third with 11,835 votes. Sharma got only 9,871 votes.
Gurmeet Singh Khudian defeated SAD's Prakash Singh Badal, 94, from Lambi. Gurmeet bagged 66,313 votes while Badal finished at second position with 54,917 votes. Gurmeet, son of former Faridkot MP Jathedar Jagdev Singh Khuddian, left the Congress and joined the AAP last year. "It's people's victory. Youth has brought a new Inquilab..." he said.
Labh Singh Ugoke, who works in a mobile repair shop, defeated CM Channi in Bhadaur by over 37,000 votes. Akali Dal's Satnam Singh stood third with over 21,000 votes. Ugoke's mother is a cleaner in a government school and his father works in the fields.
Jeevan Jyot Kaur, a social activist and advocate of menstrual hygiene, defeated cricketer-turned-politician and Punjab Congress chief Navjot Singh Siddhu in Amritsar East. Kaur, known as the âpad woman of Amritsar', also defeated Shiromani Akali Dal's (SAD) Bikram Singh Majithia. She bagged over 39,000 votes, whereas sitting MLA Siddhu got over 32,000 votes and Majithia, the brother-in-law of SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal, got 25,188 votes.
