Punjab: Congress lags behind AAP, alleges ‘hijacking’ of Panchayat Samiti and Zila Parishad elections.
Punjab: The Congress party lagged far behind the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in the Panchayat Samiti and Zila Parishad election results, with counting trends on Wednesday showing the party trailing by a significant margin. The Congress accused the AAP of “hijacking the elections.” By around 10 pm, results for 1,159 Block Samiti seats had been declared. The Congress won 196 Panchayat Samiti seats, significantly fewer than the AAP’s 709 seats. In the Zila Parishad results, the Congress won 22 out of 347 zones, while the AAP secured 80 seats. Although the State Election Commission will declare the final results on Thursday, the trends indicated an improvement in the Congress’s fortunes in the Doaba and Majha regions. The party’s performance in the Malwa region was average. Congress workers staged protests outside counting centers in Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, and Ghanour, Patiala (rural), and Samana areas of Patiala district. The party alleged that the police allowed AAP leaders to enter the counting centers.
In Chamkaur Sahib, where the Congress campaign was led by former CM Charanjit Singh Channi, the party was leading in 13 out of 15 Block Samiti seats and won all three Zila Parishad seats. In the Rajpura Block Samiti, which has 15 zones, the Congress won eight seats, the AAP six, and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) one. In Sangrur district, the Congress showed signs of a comeback, leading in 35 out of 162 Block Samiti zones. Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring said he was “definitely” satisfied with the party’s performance across the state. He alleged that “the AAP intimidated opposition candidates, forcibly prevented them from filing nomination papers, obstructed their campaigns, and ultimately influenced the results.”
However, the Congress failed to perform well in Warring’s home district of Muktsar, where the party finished third. In the Gidderbaha assembly constituency, from where Warring has been elected MLA three times consecutively, the Congress party once again finished third in the Panchayat Samiti elections. The party’s current performance is a stark contrast to its showing in previous rural elections. In 2018, when the Congress was in power, it won 2,351 Panchayat Samiti seats, which was approximately 83 percent of the total seats. In 2013, when it was in the opposition to the SAD, the party had won 454 seats. Meanwhile, a Congress group led by former MLA Kuljit Singh Nagra, while raising slogans against election officials, alleged that the Congress candidate from Sarna zone (Fatehgarh Sahib) had won by nine votes but was declared the loser.
