Votes for the bypolls to Punjab four assembly seats – Gidderbaha, Dera Baba Nanak, Chabbewal, and Barnala will be counted tomorrow. These constituencies were to go to the polls on Wednesday, with the voter turnout, as per the reports, being 63.91% of the total turnout. Among them, 81.90% of the total electorate of the Gidderbaha constituency came out to vote, Dera Baba Nanak stood second at 64.01%, Barnala at 56.34% and Chabbewal at 53.43%.
The bypolls were necessitated as the sitting legislators were earlier elected to the Lok Sabha in the current year. As for now, this election is being looked forward to as a barometer of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and his AAP government in the state, which is in its third year now. A good show in these bypolls could serve AAP as a booster/dose after they lost in 4 out of the 5 states in the recent 2024 Lok Sabha elections, where AAP manages only 3 out of 13 parliamentary seats in Punjab.
Decidedly, in the eyes of Congress, the stakes are also high. Congress’s top two MPs, Amrinder Singh Raja Warring and Sukhjinder Randhawa are involved as their wives fought the Gidderbaha and Dera Baba Nanak seats. The BJP, on its part, wants to open its account after it struck a blank in the general elections to the state assembly.
Safety measures have also been ensured in the counting centres, which are Sukhjinder Group of Institutes Gurdaspur for counting Dera Baba Nanak, Rayat and Bahra Group of Institutes Hoshiarpur for counting Chabbewal, Government Senior Secondary School Bharu Road for counting Gidderbaha, S.D College of Education for counting Barnala.
The outcome will be significant because all parties of any importance are going to strive towards a morale-boosting victory in Punjab.
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