Congress wins 4 out of 6 Hindu-significant seats in Punjab; BJP draws a blank

Out of the 13 Lok Sabha seats, six are considered Hindu-significant seats in Punjab.

The Indian National Congress (INC) won four out of the six Hindu-significant seats in the northern state of Punjab, while Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) failed to open its account, showed election results on June 4.

Out of the 13 Lok Sabha seats in the states, six are considered Hindu-significant seats. These are Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Hoshiarpur, Ludhiana and Bathinda. Jalandhar and Hoshiarpur are scheduled Caste candidates-reserved seats as well.

From Congress, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa won from Gurdaspur, Gurjeet Singh Aujla was victorious from Amritsar, Charanjit Singh Channi won from Jalandhar and Amrinder Singh Raja Warring won from Ludhiana.

Dr. Raj Kumar Chabbewal won the Hoshiarpur Lok Sabha seats for AAP, while Harsimrat Kaur Badal of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) won from Bathinda.

Even though Sikhs and Dalits hold a significant portion of the vote in the state, Hindus are regarded as the most pivotal voters.

The Ram temple in Ayodhya was a key poll plank for the BJP this time, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi hitting out at the Opposition leaders for not attending the consecration ceremony due to "vote bank" politics. The ceremony took place on January 22 this year.

There was a four-way battle in Punjab as allies at the Centre from both ruling and opposition factions fought independently on all the 13 Lok Sabha seats.

Out of the six Hindu-significant seats, Congress had won three seats in 2019 -- Amritsar, Jalandhar and Ludhiana -- with a vote share of 40.75 percent. On the other hand, BJP won Hoshiarpur and Gurdaspur, with 21.31 percent vote share, while one seat, Bathinda, went to the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) with a vote share of 18.61 percent.

The Congress was looking to repeat the show of 2019. On the other hand, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) made further inroads into the state.

Notably, BJP's vote share of 21.31 percent in the Hindu-significant seats was more than double the vote share of 9.98 percent, the party had garnered in the total 13 Lok Sabha seats in 2019 elections.

The elections are also expected to serve as a pivotal assessment of the AAP government's popularity in Punjab, marking the midway point of its tenure.

In Punjab, the Congress and the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), allies within the INDIA bloc, ran individual campaigns, while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) are each contesting the Lok Sabha elections independently for the first time since 1996.