JALANDHAR: With at least four senior Congress leaders offering nuanced criticisms calling for introspection and a fair analysis of the party’s performance in the Punjab Assembly elections, Punjab Congress leader Amrinder Singh Raja Waring asserted that the party has emerged electorally stronger “despite all odds” and “rose to its feet” after its crushing defeat in the 2022 state assembly elections. He also asserted that it has once again proven that only the Congress party, with its broad support base cutting across regions, sects and castes, can withstand extreme polarisation from any side. Waring was reacting to calls for introspection made by state legislators Pargat Singh and Rana Gurjit Singh, new MP Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa and state Congress leader Bharat Bhushan. Speaking to TOI on Wednesday, Waring maintained that vote share had little impact on the overall outcome as AAP finished second by a large margin, BJP failed to win any seats despite a significant increase in vote share and SAD won one seat despite getting 13% of the vote. Though the Congress won eight of the 13 constituencies in 2019, when the party was in power in Punjab, AAP received only 7% of the vote, the lowest level. Meanwhile, AAP is currently at the peak of its power, in power and also offering 300 units of free power, mainly targeted at sections of society that have traditionally supported the Congress Party, he maintained. “Despite all this, the Indian National Congress won seven seats with 26% vote share, almost the same as AAP’s vote share, and finished a distant third with three seats against its claim of 13 seats,” he said. “We withstood two strong challenges from urban polarisation by the BJP (which was not as strong in other parts of the country) in its favour due to the Ram temple and Modi factor, and rural ones from radical preacher Amritpal Singh of Faridkot and Sarabjit Singh, son of Indira Gandhi assassin Beant Singh,” he said. “Urban areas have traditionally been Indian National Congress strongholds. “Judicious selection of candidates in places like Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Patiala, Gurdaspur and Ferozepur helped the BJP win all these seats. Otherwise, the BJP would have had a very tough challenge in these places,” he said. “Had they not selected candidates correctly, especially in Ludhiana, Patiala and Ferozepur, the BJP could have won these three constituencies comfortably,” he claimed, adding that even in the Congress Party, senior leaders had switched to the BJP and AAP, at least four of them were candidates of other parties. He himself considered that the challenges in Ludhiana were manifold as the entire city was following a saffron path. He said the Punjab Congress leadership, including PCC chairman and Congress leader Partap Singh Bajwa, deserves praise for running an active campaign against all odds, especially despite apathy from some senior party leaders.
