Punjab elections 2017: Maur bomb blast blame game did not affect AAP’s victory

Angry Maur residents who were saying no to voting, had voted over 85% and the booth near blast site had voted 76.6%.

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AAP candidate Jagdev Singh Kamalu in Bathinda. Gurmeet Singh

Though rival parties had put a blame on AAP after Maur bomb blast and had said that AAP’s link with radicals was one of the reason for the incident. On January 31, at about 8.30 p.m a bomb blast had took place near Jassi’s election rally in which 6 persons including 4 children were killed while 16 were seriously injured.The injured are still on bed. However, it did not affect the results in Maur where AAP’s Jagdev Singh Kamaloo won by a huge margin of 14677 votes defeating SAD’s Janmeja Singh Sekhon while Congress’s Harminder Singh Jassi remained at number 3.

Soon after the blast, Capt Amarinder Singh, AICC Vice-President Rahul Gandhi and even Badals had stated that the incident had happened due to AAP’s link with radicals and in the next three days speeches of Sukhbir Singh Badal , Parkash Singh Badal Harsimrat Badal and even all Congress and SAD-BJP leaders had the same blame game. Though AAP too had blamed Sukhbir for this blast and had demanded his arrest.

Angry Maur residents who were saying no to voting, had voted over 85% and the booth near blast site had voted 76.6%.

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The election results in which AAP was leading from round one showed 62282 votes in favour of AAP against 47605 of SAD and thus defeating the two time SAD minister Janmeja Singh Sekhon with a 14677 votes. Sekhon had left the counting centre in the midway as results were not in his favour while Congress’s Jassi never came to the counting centre. Jassi got only 23087 votes and thus was way behind the winner by a huge 38475 votes.

“Though AAP could not fare well in Punjab, but the blame game did not work in Maur as results are before you all,” said Vijay Kumar, a resident of Maur.

However there were no celebrations by AAP in Maur as it had been decided before hand that whosoever wins will not celebrate his victory as the case of Maur bomb blast victims had not been solved yet and even the Sangrash committee was staging repeated dharanas against administration and police for no action in the case.

SAD minister Sekhon was not expecting this decision, as he boasted for development works of party. However he accepted defeat before leaving the counting centre. Jassi however, remained aloof and even Kamaloo despite winning the poll, did not come in the city with a victory procession as residents were in no mood to see any celebrations, said Gurmail Singh, convener of Maur bomb blast sangrash committee. Meanwhile the constituency has 1.61 lakh votes out of which nearly 1 lakh is the rural vote bank . It seems that rural voters made AAP victorious as AAP’s wave was more in villages and hence blast blame game did not affect the party at all in Maur, said Gurmail. He added, “Now we will be approaching the new Government for more compensation to the families of dead and injured. As our sangrash is on.”