With Jalandhar Lok Sabha bypolls just two days away, in a constituency with over 40 per cent Scheduled Caste (SC) voters, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) has found itself in the quandary after sodomy charges were levelled against its minister Lal Chand Kataruchak by a scheduled caste boy from Gurdaspur.

In a video message, the boy said that from 2013 onwards almost till 2021 he was forced into a relationship by the minister. Through the video, the boy also made it known that the minister had sent him a friend request and when he faltered into accepting it without realising what he was getting into, the minister started making advances.

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Now that the National Commission for Scheduled Caste (NCSC) has written to the chief secretary and Director General of Police, Punjab directing the state to provide security to the victim and also sought action, the ruling AAP has a lot of explaining to do to defend itself.

So if in Sangrur, AAP’s loss was attributed to the angst of the voters linked to the Punjabi rapper Sidhu Moosewala’s killing, in Jalandhar bypolls, the allegations of sexual misconduct against Kataruchak may set the undertones along with sundry other local issues that could go against or for the ruling party. To leave no stone unturned, Congress is going on a door-to-door campaign trying to snowball this into a big political issue.

The Jalandhar bypolls to be held on May 10 were necessitated due to the death of its sitting MP Santokh Singh Chaudhary when he collapsed while walking alongside Rahul Gandhi during the Bharat Jodo Yatra on January 14.

Will free power help AAP get a foot in LS from Punjab?

Whether 600 units of free electricity per cycle implemented across the state has paid off for AAP, will be determined after the Jalandhar LS bypolls. If AAP wins, AAP will use it as a mirror of development to showcase it across the state, but if it doesn’t, it will have to carry out a post-mortem of where it went wrong.

Dera Sach Khand Ballan factor

Apart from this, the presence of the followers of Dera Sach Khand Ballan in this seat will be a big deciding factor. At present, compared to AAP, experts say Congress has an upper hand due to the presence of the dera in this seat. Prof Sukhwinder Singh, a professor at the Centre for Industrial and Rural Research Development, Chandigarh, says, “Since this is a reserved seat, the Scheduled Caste voters will be the deciding factor. And whoever appeases the dera voters (Dera Sach Khand Ballan) will win. The AAP has set up a Guru Ravi das chair at the Dera may go in its favour,” he rues.

However, keen watchers differ from Prof Singh’s point of view. They say that former MP from Congress Santokh Chaudhary and his elder brother Chaudhary Jagjit Singh who died in 2015 were very close to the dera. Also, it was their father, a former Punjab minister who helped set up the dera headquarters here way back in the 1970s. Such contribution by this family cannot be discounted and may go in the favour of the Congress candidate Karamjit Kaur Chaudhary, who is the late Santokh Chaudhary’s wife.

Prof Manjit Singh, a keen watcher of Punjab affairs says, ”Going by the conventional electoral logic, when AAP was at its peak and formed government in Punjab, out of the nine Vidhan Sabha seats in Jalandhar, Congress won five and AAP won four seats. A year down the line, considering the sympathy out of bereavement for the Chaudhary family, the dera voters, and other issues of local governance may give Congress an edge over the ruling party.” The only positive indicator for the AAP candidate is the 600 units of free electricity to voters, say those keenly watching the Jalandhar LS seat.

Infighting in the parties

The AAP’s candidate is Sushil Kumar Rinku. Rinku recently left Congress and joined the Aam Aadmi Party.  Interestingly, he had lost to Sheetal Angural from Jalandhar (West) in the 2022 Vidhan Sabha polls. Now that Rinku is with Congress, Angural and Raman Arora, the Jalandhar (Central) MLA both see Rinku as a potential threat and may give him the cold shoulder.

In Congress, there is an overt consensus among the Congressmen that Karamjit Kaur is their candidate and they will vote and support her. But shifting of Rinku could obviously hamper and divide the enthusiasm of the Congress cadres, sympathy wave for Santokh Chaudhary will favour his wife.

BJP’s Inder Iqbal Singh Atwal, a former Akali will get the benefit of the likes of Bibi Jagir Kaur, who was expelled by Akali Dal last year and yesterday she announced her support to Atwal.

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD)-BSP candidate is Sukhwinder Sukhi. Yesterday, when Sukhbir exhorted that a win for the Akalis in the Jalandhar LS polls would be the best tribute to his late father Parkash Singh Badal, it was amply clear that Akali Dal was trying to find the lost ground on the legacy of his father than his own aura. Prof Kanwalpreet a professor of Political Science based in Chandigarh says, “Whatever the results, these elections will set the ball rolling afresh for AAP, Congress, SAD and the BJP to chalk out a fresh plan for the 2024 Lok Sabha polls.”