Cong's Ferozepur candidate failed to get lead from son's assembly seat

Congress candidate Sher Singh Ghubaya, who was convincingly defeated by SAD chief Sukhbir Badal from Ferozepur seat in the general election, failed to secure lead even from an assembly segment represented by his son.

The two-time MP Ghubaya trailed in Fazilka assembly segment by 29,011 votes, as per Election Commission data.

Badal polled 78,003 votes while Ghubaya managed to garner 48,992 votes from Fazilka assembly segment, a part of the Ferozepur parliamentary constituency. Fazilka assembly seat is represented by Ghubaya's son and Congress MLA Davinder Singh.

Out of the nine assembly segments in Ferozepur constituency, Ghubaya, a turncoat, fared poorly as he could not get lead in any of these assembly segments.

Badal defeated the SAD rebel with a huge margin of over 1.98 lakh votes, the highest among all 13 Lok Sabha constituencies in Punjab.

Despite Ghubaya, a Rai Sikh, banking on the support of its community, Badal managed to stop him from scoring a hat-trick this time.

Ghubaya had won on SAD ticket in 2009 and 2014 polls.

Shocked at his loss from Ferozepur seat, Ghubaya blamed the electronic voting machines (EVMs) for his defeat.

"The EVMs were fixed to ensure the victory of Sukhbir. How can the defeat be possible when most villagers voted for me? I got 37 per cent votes and Sukhbir got 54 per cent votes in all the nine assembly segments of the parliamentary constituency. It is not possible, Ghubaya said Saturday.

He also put the blame on some local Congress leaders for his defeat.

In March, he said he resigned from the primary membership of the Akali Dal, but the SAD said it expelled him for anti-party activities.

Ghubaya's relations with Akali Dal turned sour after a vigilance bureau raid on a private engineering college owned by his family following complaints of embezzlement in December 2017, under the previous SAD-BJP dispensation.

Before the 2017 assembly polls, Ghubaya's son, Davinder Singh, joined the Congress and won from Fazilka assembly against BJP's Surjit Kumar Jyani with a small margin of 265 votes.

Ahead of Lok Sabha polls, Ghubaya too joined the Congress and was fielded from Ferozepur.