Cong ploy to field top leaders fails in Punjab

The Congress's experiment to field its top leaders in Punjab in the Lok Sabha elections failed to click even though the move did re-energise the party cadre in the state ahead of the polls.
Going all out to take on the SAD-BJP combine, Congress placed its bets on former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh in Amritsar, Rajya Sabha MP Ambika Soni in Anandpur Sahib, leader of opposition in Assembly Sunil Kumar Jakhar in Ferozepur, Punjab Congress chief Partap Singh Bajwa in Gurdaspur and Union minister Preneet Kaur in Patiala.
Barring Amarinder, who defeated BJP's Arun Jaitley in Amritsar, none of the senior Congress leaders could win their seats.

Soni's maiden Lok Sabha poll foray did not go in her favour as she lost to SAD's Prem Singh Chandumajra while three -time MP Preneet kaur, Amarinder's wife, finished third in her traditional bastion of Patiala, which was conquered by AAP's Dr Dharamvira Gandhi. SAD's Deepinder Singh Dhillon finished second in the seat.
Sitting MP and Punjab Congress chief Bajwa lost to actor- turned-politician Vinod Khanna of BJP in Gurdaspur while Jakhar was no match for SAD's sitting MP Sher Singh Ghubaya in Ferozepur.
Congress had also fielded sitting MLAs Sadhu Singh and Joginder Singh in Fatehgarh Sahib(R) and Faridkot(R) seats, respectively, but both lost to AAP candidates.

Amarinder kept his party's flag flying by registering a comprehensive win against Jaitley. Amarinder's victory is likely to raise his stature within the party after he was replaced ahead of polls by former chief minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal as the party's campaign committee in-charge and, prior to it, by Partap Singh Bajwa as chief of the PPCC.

Congress's tally fell from eight seats in the 2009 Lok Sabha polls to just three in 2014. There are 13 Lok Sabha seats in Punjab.
Commenting on his win, Amarinder said, "I think it (the victory) is not purely mine, but of the people and the Congress leadership of Amritsar."

As to his strategy for drubbing Jaitley, he said that "Jaitley has no connection with Amritsar and he knows nobody here."
On the issue of Congress's poor performance in Punjab, he said that there was no Narendra Modi wave and it was the anti- incumbency factor and the unexpected rise of AAP which had done the party in.
"We expected that AAP will get 14 per cent of the votes, but it managed more than 26 per cent," he added.
He, however, said that the AAP effect in Punjab will diminish, as it had in Delhi.
"I will make Amritsar my main seat," he said on his win from the Majha region of Punjab.

He also claimed that nothing had come of the allegations of scandals against the UPA government.