For AAP, road to 2024 — and Punjab’s 13 Lok Sabha seats — goes via Jalandhar

Rinku’s victory came following a massive mobilisation, with Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and AAP national convenor Arvind Kejriwal holding several roadshows, while appealing to voters to give the party “11 months”, promising that they won;t come to seek votes if they fail to perform.

“Give us 11 months and if you don’t like our work then don’t vote for us in 2024 Lok Sabha elections. You can then forfeit our security deposits,” was the common appeal that both Mann and Kejriwal made.

With the voters giving the AAP that chance, after denying the same in Sangrur Lok Sabha bypoll that was held just three months after last year’s Assembly elections, the task is cut out for the party.

Rinku is now the sole MP of the AAP in the Lok Sabha. Incidentally, it is only Punjab that has sent AAP MPs to the Lok Sabha. The party failed to send any one to the Lower House from Delhi where too it is in power. After the victory, Kejriwal said people of Jalandhar “have put a stamp on our development work ahead of 2024 Lok Sabha elections”, while Mann said, “We will do tremendous work in Jalandhar in next 11 months…we will win all 13 Lok Sabha seats in 2024”.

Not much time is left for the AAP government to filfil the promises it made in the run up to the bypoll.

Both Mann and Kejriwal promised tremendous development of Jalandhar. “Jalandhar nu Chamka devange, je tusi Jharoo da battan dabbya (Vote for AAP and we will develop Jalandhar)”. They both said that pressing the “button (in the EVM) against the broom (AAPmsymbol)”, means “pressing the button of tremendous development, progress and prosperity of the constituency”.

Among other announcements, they promised to build a hospital on the lines of PGIMER, Chandigarh; getting relaid all the bad roads, and rid the constituency of the big garbage heaps. They had also made a promise to set up sports goods industry in Jalandhar in the run up to the 2022 Punjab Vidhan Sabha elections and now people are expecting that the work on it should start.

“If they asked for our votes in lieu of completing all these works in 11 months, then they must have created a road map. Now, they should start working on it and fulfil all the promises,” said Surinder Singh, who owns a shop in Adampur market where the main highway is in a shambles for years.

“If government wants then any work can be completed in time, but for that will power is needed. And if they have will power, then all these works can be completed before the Lok Sabha elections,” said another resident Jagdish Gulati, adding that the AAP government has several times said that its “khajana (treasury)” is full and there is no shortage of funds for development works.

A political expert said the electorate is much more aware now and not in mood to give second chance to parties and leaders who fail to perform. The expert cited the example of Karnataka, where despite a massive campaign led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amnit Shah and most of the Union ministers, the BJP failed to retain power in the results declared Saturday. The expert, requesting anonymity also gave the example of Sangrur bypoll saying the perception at that time was that the AAP was not working towards fulfilling its promises. “But, now more than 80 per cent households are getting zero power bills. More than 500 Aam Admi Clinics have been set up. Schools of Excellence are being set up. Nearly 30,000 people have been given job letters…all these factors worked for the AAP in Jalandhar,” the expert said.

“But as Opposition parties pointed, most of the other promises, including Rs 1,000 per month to all women, remains unfulfilled. Jalandhar has become synonymous with potholed roads and heaps of garbage can be seen everywhere. Karamjit Kaur (Congress candidate) got some sympathy votes, but that was not enough to see her through as the Congress was accused of ignoring the constituency that was twice represented by her husband and was with the party since 1999,” the expert further said, adding that Rinku will have to hit the ground running.

Rinku too understand this. While expressing gratitude to the voters of Jalandhar after being declared winner, Rinku, in his first reaction, said his priority would be to complete all the pending works of Smart City project and the Adampur flyover.

Punjab had elected four AAP MPs in 2014. They included Dr Dharamvira Gandhi from Patiala, Bhagwant Mann from Sangrur, Prof Sadhu Singh from Faridkot, and Harinder Singh Khalsa from Fatehgarh Sahib. However, the state unit of AAP had later disintegrated with Dr Gandhi quitting the party and Khalsa joining BJP ahead of the 2019 general elections.

In 2019, AAP fielded candidates on all 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab but only Mann could retain his seat. He remained the lone MP from Punjab and AAP before vacating his seat on taking charge as the chief minister in 2022. However, the AAP could not retain Sangrur in the byelection held a few months after the Assembly elections in which the party had come to power winning 92 of the 117 seats.