BJP fails to win single seat in Punjab, down from 2 seats in 2019

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which had gone solo in Punjab for the Lok Sabha elections, failed to win a single seat in the key northern state, showed election results on June 4.

In 2019, BJP had won two seats in Punjab – Gurdaspur (Sunny Deol) and Hoshiarpur (Som Parkash). Notably, both the candidates were not given tickets this time around.

In Gurdaspur, Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa of Congress won after getting 3,64,043 votes. He defeated Dinesh Singh Babbu of BJP.

In Hoshiarpur, Dr Raj Kumar Chabbewal of the Aam Aadmi Party defeated Yamini Gomar of the Indian National Congress and Anita Som Parkash of BJP.

In terms of party wise vote share, Congress had the highest percentage at 26.30 percent in Punjab. AAP came in second with a vote share percentage of 26.02. Notably, BJP, despite not winning a single seat was the third biggest party in terms of party-wise vote share with a percentage of 18.56 in Punjab.

Meanwhile, Congress won seven seats in the Punjab Lok Sabha elections, while the AAP improved its tally by winning three seats, showed election results on June 4. Harsimrat Kaur Badal won the lone Lok Sabha seat for Shiromani Akali Dal of Bathinda.

Exit polls had predicted that the Narendra Modi-led party was expected to win two-four seats in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections in Punjab.

About Punjab elections

In the last general elections in 2019, the BJP had won two seats on a vote percentage of 9.98 percent.

BJP and SAD contested the Lok Sabha elections independently for the first time since 1996 in Punjab.

From Gurdaspur, Dinesh Singh Babbu was fighting on the BJP's ticket against Congress' Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and AAP's Amansher Singh.

In Hoshiarpur, which is a Scheduled Caste candidates-reserved seat, BJP has given ticket to Anita Som Parkash. While, Dr. Raj Kumar Chabbewal is contesting for the AAP, while the Congress has fielded Yamini Gomar from the Hoshiarpur seat. Sohan Singh Thandal was contesting on the SAD party's ticket.

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi's leadership, the BJP had witnessed a revival, clinching a substantial number of seats in both the 2014 and 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Prominent candidates fighting on BJP tickets in the state are Taranjit Singh Sandhu (Amritsar), Sushil Kumar Rinku (Jalandhar), Preneet Kaur (Patiala), Arvind Khanna (Sangru) and Hans Raj Hans (Faridkot).