“Congress has thrived on the Hindu and Dalit votebanks in Punjab. They should consider a Hindu or a Dalit for the post,” said the leader.
He defeated Dhillon who was fielded by the Congress by a thin margin of 1,921 votes.
The CM said he accepts the people’s mandate “with folded hands”, and will go to Chandigarh on Sunday to submit his resignation to the Governor.
After all talks of a sweep here, party wins just 18 of total 69 seats in region.
Irrigation Minister Sharanjit Singh Dhillon was the only saving grace for SAD as he defeated Satwinder Bitti of Congress and Harjot Bains of AAP from Sahnewal.
“Sukhbir Singh Badal and SAD have fallen flat because they made politics a profession," Sidhu said.
Out of a total of 1,43,191 counted votes, Davinder bagged 39,276, Jyani 39,011 and Independent candidate Rajdeep Kaur 38,135.
An order by the Punjab Governor on the transfer and posting of Sodhi was Saturday circulated to the department and officials concerned.
Out of the six, one is AAP’s Rupinder Kaur Ruby (27), who won from Bathinda Rural by defeating SAD’s Amit Rattan Kotfatta by a margin of 10,778 votes.
At Kartarpur, Surinder Chaudhary (60), the son of late Congress minister Chaudhary Jagjit Singh, also managed to defeat SAD’s Seth Satpal Mal by over 6,000 votes.
In 2012, Manpreet had contested from two seats — Gidderbaha and Maur and had lost from both while PPP had not even been able to open its account in Punjab.
Gill said, “Our chief minister is willing to fight drug menace and thus it will not be difficult to curb supply of drugs.”
A major issue in the rural constituency of Dakha was drugs, with many youths here reportedly dying due to overdose.
“We will sit in the Opposition and work as a responsible party. My priority will be to fulfil all the pending development projects,” NK Sharma said.
Out of 25 seats in the region, only three candidates of the SAD-BJP alliance — two Akali and one BJP — won.
Congress candidate Balbir Singh Sidhu claimed he had been serving people for the last 25 years and he knew the problems of the residents.
The SAD-BJP combine, following two successive terms at the helm, was reduced to third place this time with 15 seats.
AAP's Kanwar Sandhu said that the party would hold a meeting to look into the reasons for the poor show in Punjab.
Two sitting MLAs Balbir Singh Sidhu and N K Sharma retain seats; AAP’s Kanwar Sandhu defeats sitting Congress MLA from Kharar.
When asked about the impact of drug issue on the polls, Abhimanyu said, “This kind of detailed analysis can only be done at a later stage."
Harjot Kamal of Congress won from Moga polling 52,357 votes while AAP candidate Ramesh Grover finished second with 50,593 votes. Brar finished third with 36,587 votes.
The Congress had built up the contest to portray it as a keen one and an image was created by it as well as AAP that the chief minister was struggling to secure a win.
Known for their aggressive stance against the Badals, the Bains brothers grabbed the headlines when they led massive protests against ‘transport, cable, sand mafias’ of the Badals.
Congress candidate Gurjeet Singh Aujla defeated BJP nominee Rajinder Mohan Singh Chhina by a margin of 1,97,491 votes.
“We honour the mandate given by Punjabis and will extend support to the new government for all endeavours taken for the welfare of the state,” Sukhbir said in a statement.