Congress candidate Channi wins In Jalandhar, bounces back from assembly elections loss

In a four-way race against three turncoats from the major political parties, former Punjab Chief Minister and Congress candidate Charanjit Singh Channi (60), who lost both of the seats he ran for in the February 2022 Assembly elections, scripted victory from the Jalandhar (reserved) Lok Sabha constituency on Saturday.

Channi defeated his nearest rival by 1,75,993 votes.

In the first round, Charanjit Singh Channi was well ahead of his closest opponent, BJP MP Sushil Rinku, who had switched sides twice in a year.

Among the contenders were Mohinder Singh Kaypee of the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Pawan Kumar Tinu of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), both of whom had shifted allegiances in the days leading up to the election.

In the May 2023 by-elections, which were required due to Santokh Singh Chaudhary’s untimely death, his wife Karamjit Kaur lost to Congress MLA-turned-AAP candidate Rinku, who won by a margin of 58,691 votes.

In the high-stakes bypoll at that time, the AAP defeated the Congress for the Jalandhar seat, ending the party’s undefeated streak in the Dalit heartland dating back to 1999.

This time, the Congress put its trust in three-term lawmaker and the state’s first Dalit chief minister, Charanjit Singh Channi, to win over the Dalit voters, who make up 32% of the state’s population—the largest in the nation.

At the age of 20, Charanjit Singh Channi, a former handball player, entered politics and headed the party in the 2022 Assembly elections. On September 19, 2021, he took over as Chief Minister from Amarinder Singh as a temporary measure before the state’s elections. Since 1977, he was the state’s first non-Jat Sikh chief minister.

By combining the scheduled caste votes, Charanjit Singh Channi’s victory—he won the Chamkaur Sahib Assembly seat in the Ropar district three times in a row—can assist the Congress in containing the growing power of the AAP in the Malwa region.

During his election campaign, Charanjit Singh Channi cultivated controversy by referring to the most recent Poonch terror attack—which claimed the life of an Indian Air Force (IAF) corporal and injured four soldiers—as a “election stunt” intended to help the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The BJP, which charged that the Congress was disrespectful to the military and sought an apology to the country, strongly criticized his words.