New Delhi, Feb 7 (IANS) Despite the hype created around the party in the 2017 Assembly elections, the Aam Aadmi Party had fallen way behind the Congress when results were announced. It looks all set to turn the tables in the current elections.
According to a CVoter-ABP News opinion poll released on Monday evening, the AAP is set to win Punjab with a wafer-thin majority while the Congress appears to be way behind, with the Akali Dalled alliance and the BJP-led alliance in collaboration with former Congress chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh trail behind the two leading contenders.
According to the final results of the poll, the AAP is projected to win between a range of 55 to 63 seats - the upper end of the range ensuring a majority for the party for the first time.
The Congress which recently announced the state's first Dalit Chief Minister as their CM candidate seems to be too far behind a majority with a projection of between 24 to 30 seats.
The alliance with the BSP doesn't seem to have helped the Akali Dal which ruled Punjab in alliance with the BJP between 2007 and 2017. The alliance is projected to win between 20 to 26 seats in the elections.
The BJP-led alliance is nowhere in the picture, projected to win between 3 to 11 seats.
If the findings of the opinion poll hold true when results are declared on March 10, analysts blame the intense infighting within the Congress that seems set to offer Punjab on a platter to AAP. Again, if the polls turn out to be close to actual results, Arvind Kejriwal would be on his way to a role in national politics.
Jasbir Singh Virk, president of Bhartiya Sikh Sangthan, has underlined the need to intensify the ongoing farmers' agitation and said that there was a need to shore up strength at the Delhi borders.
Punjab BJP President Ashwani Sharma told IANS that to control infighting in its party state unit, the Congress leadership made Channi ji (Charanjit Singh Channi) the Punjab Chief Minister but insulted the Dalit community by not allowing him to lead the party in the upcoming state Assembly polls.
The government and drug controller's office will have to take a decision on the third booster dose based on data and cases as times goes on and including how effective the vaccine is on the Delta virus variant, he added.
The petitioner said the state had passed the Punjab Scheduled Castes and Backward Classes (Reservation in Services) Act of 2006 but it has never implemented it in case of appointment in judicial services.
In the run up to the assembly polls scheduled early next year, the BJP Punjab unit has launched several campaigns to strengthen its organisational structure at ground level. Sharma said that work is progressing at good pace for formation of a 21-member committee at each polling booth.
