Punjab polls result | Dakha, the odd one out in Ludhiana district

Dakha is only assembly constituency in Ludhiana district from where the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) lost. Manpreet Singh Ayali of the SAD secured 49,909 votes from here winning by 5807 votes.

This is the constituency from where advocate HS Phoolka of the AAP shot to fame as he won the 2017 assembly polls but resigned in 2019 opposing government’s inaction in sacrilege cases. People’s anger in Dakha against Phoolka was one of the many factors that led to the AAP’s debacle in the constituency. On the last day of campaigning, Bhagwant Singh Mann who stopped for barely five minutes at party office in Dakha to address people, had apologised for Phoolka betrayal to the people and had appealed for a second chance. In 2019 bypolls, AAP’s Amandeep Singh Mohie had lost his security deposit as he secured just 2800 votes.

A purely rural segment, Dakha has been a tough nut to crack as people here have voted against the voting trend in state in the recent past. Even when Congress was in power and bypolls were held in 2019, people of Dakha voted for Manpreet Singh Ayali. During the 2014 and 2019 Parliamentary elections, it was HS Phoolka and Simarjeet Singh Bains respectively who won maximum vote share from Dakha rural segment even though the winning mandate went to Ravneet Singh Bittu of the Congress. Ayali had won the 2019 bypoll with 66,297 votes, while Congress’ Sandeep Singh Sandhu was the runner-up with 51,625 votes. Ayali was aware of the ground reality and the evident undercurrent of AAP in his assembly segment. However, he said he was fortunate as AAP fielded academician KNS Kang with less than a month left for elections. Ayali capitalised on the opportunity to consolidate his Jatt and Dalit vote bank.