SAD rejoices as Ayali wins Dakha in Ludhiana

Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) candidate Manpreet Singh Ayali won the Dakha bypolls on Thursday defeating Congress’s Captain Sandeep Singh Sandhu by a margin of 14,672 votes. Ayali, who won the segment for the second time as he was previously elected the MLA in 2012, maintained a steady lead right from the first round.

He bagged a total of 66,297 votes while Congress candidate Sandeep Sandhu secured 51,625 votes. Sukhdev Singh of the Lok Insaaf Party, headed by MLA Simarjeet Singh Bains, stood a distant third as he secured just 8,441 votes.

While it was expected to be a neck-and-neck contest between the SAD and the Congress, Ayali led by 550 votes in the first round itself and maintained a steady lead till the 16th round, after which he was declared the winner.

A hot seat, Dakha segment was the cynosure of all eyes in these bypolls. Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh took out a road show twice in this segment and told people to vote for Sandhu as he is close to him and their issues will reach the CM directly. As Sandhu banked on the CM during campaigning, Ayali had banked on development works he had carried out during his last tenure.

Ayali won the 2012 assembly polls with a huge margin of 16,388 votes when he bagged 72,208 votes in all. He then unsuccessfully contested the 2014 assembly polls, in which he stood third. In the 2017 assembly polls, Ayali lost to Phoolka and bagged just 54,754 votes.

Sandhu did not turn up at the counting centre at GHG College, Gurusar Sudhar, while Ayali and his associates reached the booth even before the counting began.

THIS IS CAPTAIN’S DEFEAT: AYALI

Soon after the eight round, a battery of enthusiastic SAD workers started celebrating amid beating of drums and dancing as it became clear that Ayali, with over 7,000 votes in his kitty, was set for a win. Ayali too came out of the counting centre and said that it was a direct fight with the CM in these bypolls.

“This was no ordinary election. My workers were arrested and threatened at the behest of the ruling party,” he said while alleging that 77 of his party’s workers from across the state were arrested by police of other districts.

“The chief minister himself took out a road show twice in Dakha prior to the elections. However, the public is smart enough to gauge who is speaking the truth and who is only building castles in the air,” Ayali said, adding that when people had made up their minds, then nothing else matters. “My agenda was development and I am ready to serve the people again,” he said.

“This is the Captain’s defeat. It was not easy to fight the police of the entire state,” he said. Ayali had fought these elections with development as the agenda and had been telling people that since Sandeep Sandhu is an outsider he (Sandhu) won’t be visible after polls.