Sangrur – For the second consecutive time, Punjab is the only state in the country to send an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader to the Lok Sabha. The tally, however, has come down this time from four in 2014 to one even as most of its candidates forfeited their security deposits.
Bhagwant Mann is one of the few candidates who have continued with the party in a state where AAP has faced a near-complete decimation, both in terms of leaders or cadres. He is the first MP to score a consecutive win from Sangrur after former Chief Minister Surjit Singh Barnala of Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) who had won successive terms from the parliamentary constituency in 1996 followed by 1998.
Mann defeated his nearest rival Kewal Singh Dhillon of Congress by a margin of just over one lakh votes. However, the margin of victory has nearly halved from 2,11,751 in 2014 general elections. Only Baljinder Kaur from Bathinda and Sadhu Singh from Faridkot could post a respectable tally of votes.
AAP has paid heavily for the infighting, which broke out almost immediately after the 2017 assembly poll debacle and continued in the lead up to the Lok Sabha polls with MLAs breaking away to form their own parties and two of them joining the Congress. The grassroots cadre of the party was as divided as the leadership, which resulted in a loss of confidence among the voters as well as a split in votes among the respective factions.