Lok Sabha election results 2019: Modi wave with Akali Dal alliance helps party win two seats in Punjab

The Narendra Modi wave helped the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) put up a reasonably good show in Punjab, where it was struggling to find strong candidates, as the party won two of the three seats it contests in alliance with its partner Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD).

The party has not only increased its vote share from 8.7% in 2014 to 9.57% this time by winning the Gurdaspur and Hoshiarpur seats, it also regained the ground it had trailed in most of the assembly segments.

In the 2017 assembly polls, the party’s vote share had shrunk to mere 5.3% and it could win only three seats of a of total 23 it contests in the state. This time, the party not only took significant leads in 14 assembly segments but also fared reasonably well in several urban areas.

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In Gurdaspur, the party candidate and Bollywood actor Sunny Deol, who won by 77,009 votes, trailed in four of nine assembly segments that SAD contests.

The Modi wave was visible in the segments of Bhoa, Pathankot, Dinanagar and Sujanpur that gave him a combined lead of over 90,000 votes, are dominated by Hindu voters.

The Bhoa segment gave him the biggest lead of 29,000 votes, followed by Pathankot at over 24,000 votes.

Similarly, party’s Hoshiarpur candidate Som Parkash, who won by 46, 993 votes, trailed in five assembly seats that SAD contests but took a lead of over 74,000 votes from predominantly Hindu assembly segments of Mukerian, Dasuya, Phagwara and Hoshiarpur.

Mukerian gave him the biggest lead of 37,000 votes followed by Dasuya (22,000 votes) to the BJP. These segments are also dominated by Hindus, especially the Rajputs.

“Sunny Deol is a celebrity but it was only because of the Modi wave that he won,” said a senior BJP leader