For the first time in almost three decades, the then ally in Punjab The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the BJP contested separately in the civic body elections for five municipalities and 41 municipal councils and nagar panchayats on Saturday.
The results of these polls have shown that the performance of both parties is weak. However, the BJP managed to pull off a stronger showing than the Akali Dal, signaling its gradual inroads into the semi-rural areas of the state.
The SAD, whose vote bank is mainly based in rural areas, faced a serious setback in these elections. Many Akali Dal candidates contested the elections independently without their election symbols as they fear a backlash from the people given the party’s upheaval amid religious punishment by the Akal Takht, the highest temporary seat of the Sikhs.
Consisting of 368 wards in Ludhiana, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Patiala and Phagwara – elections to five municipal corporations – each won by the ruling AAP and the main opposition Congress, the remaining three witnessed hung verdicts. BJP won 55 votes Out of 319 wards it contested (17.2% success rate), the SAD won only 11 out of 213 wards (5.1% success rate).
Out of 95 wards of Ludhiana Municipal Corporation, Punjab’s largest civic body, the BJP contested in 90 wards and won 19. In an embarrassing move for the ruling party, BJP’s Poonam Ratra defeated her candidate Meenu Prashar, wife of local AAP MLA Ashok Prashar Pappy. Ward no. 77 by 574 votes. SAD has been able to win only 2 after competing in 78 wards.
Patiala – the home ground of senior BJP leader and former CM Capt Amarinder Singh – the BJP contested in 25 of the 53 wards, winning only 4, with Capt Amarinder’s daughter Jai Inder Kaur, who is also the president of Punjab BJP’s Mahila Morcha Despite intense propaganda by .
In Jalandhar, the BJP won 19 out of 83 wards, compared to 8 it won in 2017. SAD contested in 31 wards, but one fell vacant.
In Phagwada, the BJP contested in 37 out of 50 wards, winning 4, while the SAD won 3 out of 9. In 2015, the SAD-BJP alliance won 30 seats here (SAD 9, BJP 21).
In the Amritsar civic body elections, the BJP contested in 84 out of 85 wards, winning 9, while the SAD won 4 out of 69.
Expressing “satisfaction” with the results, state BJP general secretary Anil Sarin said, “In the previous elections too, we were in the opposition, but we were in alliance with the SAD. But now our individual performance has improved a lot… In the Lok Sabha, we did really well in all municipal corporations. But people vote differently in Lok Sabha and civic elections.
Sarin said, “BJP’s late penetration in semi-rural areas is evident”.
In Sangrur Municipal Council, CM Bhagwant Mann’s turf, BJP won 3 out of 29 wards and lost 4 others. BJP has won 2 out of 13 seats in Bhadsan Nagar Panchayat of Patiala. Similarly, 2 wards were won in Rajasansi (Amritsar) and 1 each in Bhikhi (Mansa), Shahkot and Goraya (Jalandhar).
The bids of SAD candidates who contested as independent candidates in city councils and city panchayats yielded mixed results. ‘We left the responsibility of decision-making to the local leadership. And in many places our candidates contested freely but people knew they were Akali,” SAD leader Perambans Bunty Rumana told The Indian Express.
While the BJP gained some ground in semi-rural areas, its performance in these civic elections did not match its significant lead in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Ludhiana, Patiala, Jalandhar and Amritsar. However, the party got a vacant seat in the Lok Sabha elections in the state.
The SAD skipped the recent by-elections in four Assembly seats due to the “tankhaiya” status of its former president Sukhvir Singh Badal. Although he completed his tankah (religious penance) on December 12, Sukhveer did not campaign for the party in the civic polls as the Akal Takht has not yet given a final verdict in his case.
Akali leaders admitted that their local leaders had preferred the “strategy” of contesting elections without party symbols in several wards to “avoid backlash”, which they claimed had resulted in “sporadic wins”.
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