a-house-for-bhagwant-mann-in-jalandhar

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has finally moved to a house in Jalandhar, which he has rented for himself and his family. He will be staying here for two days a week. The idea behind spending two days here is to remain easily accessible to the people of the Doaba and Majha regions, which are relatively far off from the capital city of Chandigarh. That is what the Chief Minister has been saying. 

 

For the first time, a Chief Minister in Punjab has decided to set up an alternate residence, which will consequently mean an office and senior officers around, away from the capital city. 

 

This is an excellent idea in terms of the government's outreach programme for the people living in far-off areas. 

 

There is also another reason for the Chief Minister to move to Jalandhar. He is faced with a tough by-election in Jalandhar West assembly segment. 

 

The by-election was necessitated by the resignation of the Aam Aadmi Party MLA from here, Sheetal Angural, who joined the Bharatiya Janata Party ahead of the General Elections.

 

Mann apparently has made the by-election an issue of personal prestige. By-elections are normally a reflection of the performance of the government. But Mann, as the Chief Minister, appears to have taken a big gamble to lead the campaign himself and permanently move to Jalandhar for the purpose.

 

The by-election is being fought in the immediate aftermath of the General Elections, where the AAP’s performance was very poor.

 

The party won just three of the thirteen seats when it had claimed to sweep all the seats. Moreover, when the party had a 3/4th majority in the Punjab assembly having 92 of the 117 seats there, its performance was far below the expectations, raised by Mann himself.

 

A victory in this by-election will definitely help Mann to redeem his bruised image because of the poor General Election results. But he has a tough task at hand. In the General Election, the AAP candidate Pawan Kumar Tinu was a distant third from this constituency, while Charanjit Singh Channi of the Congress led from here.

 

BJP candidate and sitting AAP MP Sushil Rinku, who had switched over to the BJP was a close second. While Channi got 44394, Rinku was a close second getting 42,837 votes, while Tinu got just 15,629 votes.

 

This is an uphill task Mann has taken upon himself. But parliamentary and assembly elections are different ball games. Besides, in an assembly by-election, the ruling party does have an inherent advantage no matter how strong the opponents might be. Whether that advantage can translate into an electoral victory is too difficult to predict at this stage.

 

Mann has another reason also to ensure his party’s victory from here. Initially it was reported that Mann will not be leading the Jalandhar by-election campaign and it would be led by Sandeep Pathak, a Rajya Sabha MP and the party ‘in-charge’ for Punjab.

 

Although the idea apparently was to protect the Chief Minister from any adverse results, his camp did not like the idea as it was being interpreted in a different way that the Chief Minister was being sidelined after the poor show in the parliamentary elections.

 

Both the Congress and the BJP are in a very strong position in Jalandhar West as is obvious from the parliamentary election results. Also, the BJP has the advantage of having in its fold, two former MLAs from here, Sushil Rinku, who represented the constituency as a Congress candidate from 2017 to 2022 and Sheetal Angral, who won in 2022 on the AAP ticket. 

 

The AAP candidate is a former BJP leader who contested on the party ticket unsuccessfully in 2017 and 2022. The Congress has fielded a former Deputy Mayor from the city. 

 

Despite the odds being heavily against the AAP, Mann has decided to lead from the front, which he could have easily avoided. In fact, if media reports are to be believed, he was also provided a chance, when Pathak was said to lead the campaign. And Mann is giving his best and has been making his presence felt, giving the Congress and the BJP, the run for their money.