As the counting of votes for the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat began this morning, all eyes on this high-stakes electoral battle in Punjab with all main political parties vying to win this reserved seat to set the tone for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.

Though 19 candidates are in fray, the main contest is between the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), main Opposition party Congress, Shiromani Akali Dal-Bahujan Samaj Party (SAD-BJP) combine and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

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A Congress stronghold, though the Jalandhar seat fell vacant after Congress’ Member of Parliament (MP), Santokh Singh Chaudhary (76), died of a heart attack during Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra in Punjab this January, this bypoll is a matter of prestige for the ruling AAP which for more than a reason.

As AAP lost the bypoll for Sangrur Lok Sabha seat to Simranjit Singh Mann, a known radical Sikh leader of Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar), barely three months after winning 92 of the 117 seats in 2022 Assembly polls, a defeat in this bypoll will ring the alarming bells for the ruling party.

Opposition parties claim AAP will replace the Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann if the party fails to win this bypoll which is likely to set the tone for 2023 Lok Sabha polls.

As this bypoll result will also be seen as a verdict on the Mann government’s performance in the past one year, AAP took no chances this time by roping in its top leaders including AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal to campaign for party candidate Sushil Kumar Rinku, a former Congress legislator who joined AAP days days before the declaration the bypoll.

The faction-ridden Congress is presenting a united face to retain the Jalandhar seat, which he remained with the party since 1999, where the party has fielded Santokh’s wife Karamjit Kaur Chaudhary.

Congress , which won five of the nine Assembly segments in Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat while the AAP won the remaining four, is confident of victory due to Chaudhary family’s influence in the constituency and the sympathy factor due to the sitting member’s demise. But the party is taking no chances as victory here will make the Congress the main challenger against AAP in Punjab.

The bypoll is another chance for the SAD to wrest its decline in Punjab politics which saw the party win just three seats in Assembly polls and getting pushed to fifth position in Sangrur by poll by polling just 6.25 per cent of votes despite alliance with the BSP.

As it’s first election after Akali Dal patriarch Parkash Singh Badal’s demise, SAD – which has fielded Sukhwinder Kumar Sukhi as alliance candidate – hopes to gain the lost ground in this bypoll.

The SAD’s hopes to benefit from its alliance with the BSP as Jalandhar has the highest concentration of the SC population (45 per cent).

The BJP, which has named former SAD leader Inder Iqbal Singh Atwal as its candidate, hopes this bypoll will mark a new beginning for the saffron party in Punjab politics. With a big number of Congress leaders joining the saffron outfit following the footsteps of former Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, the BJP hopes Atwal- which fought 2019 Lok Sabha polls as the joint candidate of the SAD-BJP – will help the party put up a good show in this bypoll.

Atwal is son of former Lok Sabha deputy speaker and SAD leader Charanjit Singh Atwal who followed his son into the BJP recently.