In Punjab’s Malwa region, which is crucial to the state’s politics, the Congress has once again made a name for itself after winning four Lok Sabha seats in the general elections of 2024.
According to Election Commission (EC) figures, the party won the Lok Sabha seats of Ludhiana, Ferozepur, Fatehgarh Sahib, and Patiala. These constituencies are located in Punjab’s Malwa district.
The Congress established a foothold in the Ludhiana and Patiala seats, where the BJP had fielded former members of the grand old party Ravneet Singh Bittu and Preneet Kaur. These victories were noteworthy.
The AAP won two seats in the Malwa region, Anandpur Sahib and Sangrur, and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), led by Sukhbir Singh Badal, may win Bathinda.
From the reserve constituency of Faridkot, independent candidate Sarabjeet Singh Khalsa emerged victorious. He is the son of one of the two killers of former prime minister Indira Gandhi.
Punjab’s Malwa belt is consistently regarded as the largest and most significant political region. Ludhiana, Bathinda, Ferozepur, Faridkot (SC), Fatehgarh Sahib (SC), Patiala, Anandpur Sahib, and Sangrur are the eight seats that make up this group.
The Malwa region has 69 assembly seats out of 117 constituencies in the state.
The Jalandhar reserve parliamentary seat in the Doaba region was won by the Congress, with former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi defeating Sushil Rinku of the BJP by a comfortable majority of 1.75 lakh votes.
Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) lead by Arvind Kejriwal won the Hoshiarpur reserve seat, which is in the Doaba region.
The BJP failed to retain the Hoshiarpur seat which was considered its citadel.
AAP candidate Raj Kumar Chabbewal defeated Congress party’s Yamini Gomar from Hoshiarpur.
The Doaba region has a sizable population of the Scheduled Caste community.
As far as the Majha region is concerned, the Congress won the Amritsar and Gurdaspur Lok Sabha constituencies.
Congress candidate and former deputy chief minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa trounced BJP’s Dinesh Babbu from Gurdaspur.
Radical preacher Amritpal Singh, who is lodged in a jail in Assam, won from the Khadoor Sahib seat with a massive margin of 1.97 lakh votes.
The Khadoor Sahib constituency, referred to as a “Panthic” seat, is comprised of voters hailing from Majha, Malwa, and Doaba districts. Jandiala, Tarn Taran, Khem Karan, Patti, Khadoor Sahib, Baba Bakala, Kapurthala, Sultanpur Lodhi, and Zira are its nine assembly segments.
The Congress delivered a crushing blow to the opposition BJP and SAD as well as the ruling AAP in the crucial Punjab Lok Sabha elections of 2024, taking seven of the thirteen seats, while two Independents unexpectedly won.
While the AAP clinched three seats, the SAD could win only one seat and the BJP drew a blank in the border state.
In 2019, the Congress bagged eight of the 13 Lok Sabha seats.
The SAD and the BJP, then fighting as allies, won two seats each. The Aam Aadmi Party got just the Sangrur seat then.
Following the Sangrur and Jalandhar bypolls in 2022 and 2023, the Congress was left with seven seats while the SAD and BJP had two each and AAP and SAD (Amritsar) one each.