Patiala Urban Election Result 2022: Amarinder Singh loses to AAP's Ajit Kohli

In a historic development, former Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh and leader of newly found Punjab Lok Congress (PLC) lost the Patiala constituency to Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Ajit Pal Singh Kohli. Capt. was able to secure 20,105 against Kohli who bagged 33,142 votes to defeat the former on his home turf. It is worth noting that Patiala was considered a stronghold of Capt Amarinder as he had won the constituency in four consecutive elections - 2002, 2007, 2012 and 2017. His wife Preneet Kaur had also registered a win in 2014 after the former won the Patiala Lok Sabha seat, defeating BJP veteran Arun Jaitley by a margin of more than 1,02,000 votes. 

The Patiala seat was up for grabs between 15 other candidates that include Vishnu Sharma (INC), Naunihal Singh (SADASM), Pankaj Mohindru (IND), Makhan Singh (IND), Malwinder Singh (IND), Ravinder Singh (IND), Gurmukh Singh (IND), Paramjit Singh (LIP), Yogesh Kumar (JAPA), Sonu (IND), Jasbir Singh (IND), Harpal Juneja (SAD), Jagdish Kumar (IND), Jyoti Tiwari (IND), and Davinder Singh (IND).

AAP registers landslide victory in Punjab

Punjab will see a new government henceforth as Kejriwal’s AAP registered a landslide victory by bagging 89 seats out of 117 in total. The Indian National Congress (INC), emerged as the runner-up as it managed to win just 18 seats. The INC was followed by Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) each of which bagged six and two seats, respectively. The state will now see Bhagwat Mann as their new Chief Minister as he was recently announced as the next leader by Arvind Kejriwal. 

It is worth mentioning that the Punjab elections this year saw a voter turnout of  63.58%, which is about 3.5% lower than the previous elections held in 2017. The state completed the polls on February 20 and the counting of the votes began today starting at 8 am. 

Punjab CM trails from Chamkaur Sahib

Outgoing Punjab Chief Minister andINC candidate Charanjit Singh Channi, on the other hand, is trailing AAP candidate Charanjit Singh by 2,473 votes. With a 43.4% vote share, Channi has gained 34,604 votes whereas AAP’s Singh has gained 37,077 votes with a 46.5% vote share.

Image: PTI