CHANDIGARH: The Shiromani Akali Dal, led by Parkash Singh Badal, has made a clean sweep in the general house elections to the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, by capturing over 155 seats out of the 170 that went to polls yesterday. Officially the results would be announced on Wednesday, but according to political sources, the team led by Badal and SGPC President Gurcharan Singh Tohra has captured all the seats in Ludhiana, Patiala, Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Bathinda, Faridkot, Moga, Muktsar, Jalandhar, Kapurthala and Mansa districts. The Akali Dal (Amritsar) and Akali Dal (Panthic), which were in the fray, in association with the Bahujan Samaj Party and the Sant Samaj, had to be content with the token presence of about seven seats, followed by the SAD rebels, who managed five seats. The SAD conceded these seats in Fatehgarh Sahib, Sangrur, Ropar, Hoshiarpur and Ferozepore in Punjab and Sirsa in Haryana. Though the Akali Dal (Amritsar) chief, Simranjit Singh Mann, himself won from Bassi Pathana by a margin of about 6500 votes, so stunned was he by the poll outcome that he refused to make any comments when media persons approached him at his residence in Qila Hamam Singh. Tohra was elected for the fourth consecutive term from Bhadson in Patiala district where he defeated Darshan Singh by nearly 5500 votes. The SAD senior vice-president, Jagdev Singh Talwandi, retained the Raikot seat in Ludhiana district by a margin of 2,000 votes. Notable losers included Kabul Singh and Kamail Singh Panjoli. Dal clean swept the Majha region, winning all the 34 seats from the two border districts of Amritsar (25 seats) and Gurdaspur (nine seats). However, in Doaba region, the party lost one of the total 22 seats at stake, when Kabul Singh, former president of the SGPC and former president of the SAD (Longowal), was defeated by less than 1000 votes by the independent candidate, Jangbahadur Singh Rai, in Garhshankar constituency of Hoshiarpur district. Rai had been claimed by the expelled leader, Kuldip Singh Wadala, to be his candidate. All the other candidates fielded by Wadala and Sukhjinder Singh at various seats were trounced, Sucha Singh Chhotepur, chairr.an of the parliamentary board of Akali Dal (Amritsar), lost by a margin of over 6,000 votes to the SAD Gurdaspur president, Sucha Singh Langah. The SAD bagged all the five seats in Faridkot district and seven seats in Moga district, In Ferozepore, the party won ten out of the total eleven seats and lost at Dharamkot (women). In Ludhiana, the SAD captured all the 19 seats. The prominent winners included Amarjit Singh Bhatia, Giani Bhagat Singh, Thekedar Surjan Singh, Mal Singh Ghuman and Kuldeep Kaur. In Patiala, the home district of Tohra, the SAD laid its claim to all the seats, however, in Fatehgarh Sahib District, the SAD and Akali Dal (Amritsar) claimed two seats each. Besides Bassi Pathana, the latter also wrested the Fatehgarh Sahib (general) seat. The other seats won by the party included those in Bamala (both general and reserve), Chanan wal in Sangrur district and Morinda in Ropar district. SAD rebel won at Garhshankar (Hoshiarpur).
Article extracted from this publication >> October 16, 1996
