Bittu comes trumps in Ludhiana - Phoolka eats into vote share of Ayali, reduces him to third spot
Saturday, 17/05/2014
http://epaper.dailypostindia.com/Details.aspx?id=103115&boxid=57774&uid=&dat=2014-05-17
Ludhiana : In a tough contest in Ludhiana, Congress candidate Ravneet Singh Bittu recorded a victory by a margin of 19,709 votes. However, Aam Aadmi Party candidate H S Phoolka too gave a keen competition reducing ruling SAD—BJP candidate Manpreet Ayali to the third slot.
The prime factor which helped Phoolka in bagging the second position was votes in the rural area. Phoolka was successful in giving a tough fight to Akali candidate in the rural constituencies of Gill, Dakha and Jagraon and the situation was such that in Jagraon his lead was unmatched and he got 62,359 votes from this constituency.
Meanwhile, independent nominee Simarjeet Bains who could not garner any votes in other constituencies maintained his lead at two constituencies of Ludhiana South and Atam Nagar with 42,734 and 43,093 votes, respectively. Both of these constituencies lie with the Bains brothers from where they are MLAs. However, in other constituencies too Bains hit the SAD-BJP vote bank which resulted in Ayali’s defeat.
Though Bittu was declared winner, the counting of 1,500 votes was pending because of the technical sang in two EVM machines of Gill constituency. But by 8:30 pm the final results were announced.
Despite having 22 candidates in the field there were certain voters who did not like any of them and pressed NOTA button. As many as 3,220 voters used this option and preferred to reject the candidates.
Meanwhuile, district BJP president Parveen Bansal said, “We failed to judge the mood of the people. Anti-incumbency was also there and we failed at some fronts in the communication process with people. It’s the same people who have passed on the verdict of 335 seats at centre level. In future all the issues at the local level will be introspected and rectified.”
