Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) chief Sukhbir Singh Badal on Thursday, 10 March, suffered an unexpected loss to Aam Aadmi Party's (AAP's) Jagdeep Kamboj in Punjab's Jalalabad constituency by a gap of 30,930 votes.
Latest trends show AAP winning/leading in over 90 seats in the state.
The former deputy CM's loss comes after a win in the seat on the last three occasions.
Soon after the result, Sukhbir Singh Badal tweeted, "We whole-heartedly & with total humility accept the mandate given by Punjabis. I am grateful to lakhs of Punjabis who placed their trust in us & to to SAD-BSP workers for their selfless toil. We will continue to serve them with humility in the role they have assigned to us."
Further, he congratulated AAP and Bhagwant Mann on the victory.
The constituency was previously represented by Congress’s Raminder Singh Awla, who won the bypoll in 2019 after Badal vacated the seat, having won the Lok Sabha election the same year.
Badal first contested from Jalalabad in the 2009 bypoll, winning by 80,662 votes, after which he became the deputy CM. In 2012, his victory margin was 50,246 votes.
In 2017, Badal had garnered 75,271 votes in the Jalalabad constituency in the polls, leading him to victory over AAP's Bhagwant Mann who had attained 56,771 votes.
Meanwhile, SAD's Parkash Singh Badal lost to AAP's Gurmeet Singh Khudian from the Lambi Assembly seat by 11,396 votes. While Khudian won the seat with 66,313 votes, Badal was able to muster only 54,917 votes.
As reported by news agency ANI, Khudian said, "It's a people's victory. Youth has brought a new Inqilab. From the first day onwards, people walked along with me and supported me."
The SAD's Performance in 2017
A total of 59 seats are required to form a majority in the 117-member Punjab state Assembly.
SAD had secured 15 out of the 117 seats in 2017, far behind the Congress' 77 seats at the time, and AAP which had won 20. Having won an absolute majority in the last elections, the Congress had ousted the SAD-BJP government after 10 years.
For this year, the News24-Today's Chanakya exit polls had projected that SAD would win 6±5 seats in Punjab. The India Today-India My Axis exit poll results had predicted that the party would win 7-11 seats.
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