Seat watch, Amritsar: Pitted against Gurjit Aujla, Hardeep Puri faces tough fight in Jatt-majority seat

Amritsar-born former bureaucrat Hardeep Puri, a Sikh but non-Jatt, has made frequent visits to the city since his sudden inclusion in BJP and becoming a minister in the Union government in 2017. However, even 24 hours after his candidature was announced, the city has hardly any posters of Puri. Even the BJP main office in Amritsar has no posters with his face yet. It is still not clear when Puri will be arriving in the city. Click here for more election news 

Puri is considered close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi. He had also to Pakistan to attend the ground-breaking ceremony of Kartarpur Corridor. The only advantages he has over BJP’s 2014 candidate Arun Jaitley is that he is a Sikh and not facing a heavyweight like Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh. Jaitley had lost by more than a lakh votes in 2014.

Meanwhile, voices of discontent have been getting louder in BJP’s Amritsar unit, which sources said state BJP president and Rajya Sabha member Shawiat Malik has, despite being from the city, failed to quell. Former Punjab BJP minister Anil Joshi is the biggest challenge for Malik and keeping both groups together and make them work towards his victory will be a challenge for Puri, said sources.

Jaitley debacle of 2014

In 2014, Jaitley had lost despite the SAD-BJP being in power in the state. The Akalis had promised Jaitley a win on this seat. Puri has come to Punjab for his first ever election battle at a time when Congress is in power in Punjab.

Meanwhile, former Punjab minister Bikram Singh Majithia has off late been more busy in Bathinda and Ferozpur than his home constituency Majitha, which is part of Amritsar parliamentary constituency. SAD former Attari MLA Gulzar Singh Ranike is the party candidate from Faridkot and his whole Attari team is working there. Akalis contest on 5 of 6 Assembly constituencies in Amritsar and their contribution will be crucial for Puri in putting up a good fight. It is unlikely that PM Narendra Modi’s name will play a big role in helping him garner votes in this state.

“At the end of the day, People have to choose a lesser evil between Congress and BJP and caste will play very important role,” said Jagrup Singh Sekhon, head of the political science department at Guru Nanak Dev University.

Aujla needs to neutralise naysayers

CM Captain Amarinder Singh will be present as Congress candidate Gurjeet Singh Aujla filed his nomination papers on Tuesday. However, it would be interesting to see how many party MLAs participate in Aujla’s campaign. Aujla had himself accepted that a few Congress MLAs had opposed his claim to contest from Amritsar.

Sources said Aujla was not the first choice of the state Congress unit for the Amritsar seat. His name was finalised only after former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh declined to contest.

Jatt v/s non-Jatt

No non-Jatt has won from the Amritsar seat since 2004. Navjot Singh Sidhu had won from here as a BJP candidate three times in a row before BJP decided to replace him with Jaitley. Amarinder and Aujla had won in 2014 and 2017 respectively.

“It used to be a Hindu-dominant seat but now it is Jatt-Sikh dominant seat. The BJP’s 2017 bypoll candidate Rajinder Mohan Singh Chhina had better chances to win the seat over Hardeep Puri, who is a non-Jatt. Akalis are also going through a crisis and hence, non-Jatt Sikh voters also have not many options.

Amritsar MPs sitting in opposition

For the last 20 years, the Amritsar Parliament constituency has not seen its representative sitting on the ruling side in the lower House.

No party that formed government at the Centre since 1999 could win Amritsar seat touching Pakistan.

Largely remaining a Congress stronghold since first the Parliament election in 1952, it was Navjot Singh Sidhu who had turned the tables here in 2004 and won the seat three times in a row for the BJP.

Congress again wrenched the seat from BJP in a high profile contest between Amarinder and Jaitley in 2014 with Sidhu remaining out of the campaign that ultimately led to his joining Congress in 2017 before state Assembly elections.

The second bypoll in the last 20 years on Amritsar seat was in 2017 which provided then Amritsar Rural Congress president and former councillor Gurjeet Singh Aujla an opportunity to become MP for the first time.

Big vote margin to cover for Puri

Despite a high profile contest, Captain Amarinder Singh had won seat by a margin of more than a lakh votes in 2014 and Aujla secured the secured by a margin of 1.92 lakh votes in 2017. Hardeep Puri has a huge margin to cover.

AAP, PDA may not be threats

AAP had its best chance in 2014 when it won 4 seats in the state. However, its candidate Dr Daljit Singh could secure only 82, 633 votes.

The party was hoping to form government in the state in 2017. However, its candidate Upkar Singh could secure only 1.49 lakh votes in parallel bye elections held for Amritsar seat. The party failed to even divide the votes in both elections and may not be a threat this time too even though it had announced its candidate Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal in October 2018.

The PDA has left the Sikh majority Amritsar seat for Communist Party of India’s Daswinder Kaur. She had secured 17,886 votes in 2017.