Has Mann moved up in AAP hierarchy with Jalandhar bypoll win

New Delhi: Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann has consolidated his position as the chief minister and in the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) after the outstanding victory in the by-elections to the Jalandhar Lok Sabha seat, a stronghold of the Congress.

The grand old party lost the seat after 24 years. The by-elections were necessitated by the death of former Member of Parliament and prominent Dalit leader Santokh Singh Chaudhary, who died of a heart attack while participating in Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra in Punjab on January 14 this year. The Congress had fielded his wife Karamjit Kaur Chaudhary from the seat. 

The worrying factor for the Congress is that it trailed in all the nine assembly segments in the Lok Sabha seat while the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led in two. In the 2022 assembly elections, the Congress had resisted the AAP sweep only in Jalandhar winning five seats. 

Initially, AAP convenor and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal was in favour of not contesting the bypoll, apprehending a repeat of Sangrur Lok Sabha by-elections. The AAP could not for a long time find a suitable candidate to contest from the seat. 

However, Mann stood firm on his decision to contest the bypoll. He zeroed in on former Congress legislator Sushil Kumar Rinku and made him join the AAP and fielded him from the constituency.  

Mann was keen to restore his popularity which had taken a hit with the defeat in his Lok Sabha constituency Sangrur in the bypolls in June last year, three months after the AAP swept the assembly elections winning 92 of the total 117 seats.

Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) chief Simranjit Singh Mann had defeated AAP’s Gurmail Singh by 5,822 votes while the Congress, BJP and Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) candidates lost their security deposits.  

The AAP had visibly negated the gains in three months, mainly due to administrative issues. The ruling party then seemed to have no grip over bureaucracy and frequent transfer of officials indicated some sort of tussle within the establishment. 

But that is history. Mann has come a long way and strengthened his position with his deft handling of the Amritpal Singh issue. After a five-week game of hide and seek, Singh was arrested by the Punjab Police in a smooth operation. The action drew accolades for Mann from different quarters, including his political rivals. Even Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma lavished praise on Mann for his smooth crackdown on the Khalistan sympathiser and his supporters. 

The demographic profile of Jalandhar is such that the Hindus dominate the area followed by the Sikhs. During his campaigning, Mann kept the heat on the Amritpal issue. In fact, he is the only politician in Punjab who consistently took on Shiromani Gurudwara Parbhandhak Committee (SGPC) chief Harjinder Singh Dhami. 

In his 14-month tenure, Mann has transformed his image from a comedian to a serious politician and an able administrator. He has seemingly moved ahead in the AAP hierarchy with his party’s win in Jalandhar. As of today, he is the number two in the party after Kejriwal with Manish Sisodia in jail in the Delhi excise policy case.  

Though the Jalandhar verdict got lost in the din over the Congress party’s victory over the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka, it has come as a huge morale booster for the AAP ahead of the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.