Arvind Kejriwal's Aam Aadmi Party scored a landslide win in Punjab with leads in 92 seats in the 117-seat assembly, while the ruling Congress trailed with 18 seats in what was previously considered their stronghold.
Counting of votes for the Punjab Assembly Election 2022 began at 8 am today. Within the first two hours, NDTV called the result for the election based on early trends and predicted an AAP triumph in the state.
As vote counting progressed, Punjab's former Chief Minister Amarinder Singh -- who won the 2017 Assembly elections for Congress by a massive margin -- lost his constituency, Patiala Urban, to his AAP rival, while Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi lost the election from both seats he contested from.
Other political heavyweights like Congress' Navjot Singh Sidhu, Akali Dal patriarch Parkash Singh Badal and Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal also lost, marking the first time in 30 years that the Badal family will go unrepresented in the Punjab state assembly. AAP's Chief Ministerial face Bhagwant Mann, on the other hand, scored the Dhuri seat he was contesting from, in yet another win for the party of the hour.
AAP, positioning itself as an agent of change, designed its poll campaign this time round to encourage people to vote for "badlav" (change), and targeted the traditional political parties for "looting" the state. These parties are the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Congress, who have alternatively been forming the government in Punjab ever since 1966.
The state, which has over 2.14 crore eligible voters, went to polls on February 20 and recorded a voter turnout of 71.95 per cent -- its lowest in comparison to the past three assembly elections in Punjab.