Sunil Jakhar wins Gurdaspur bypoll, says the downfall of BJP has begun

Jakhar said that the people of Gurdaspur have also polled in favour of the Congress and against the BJP government at the centre for its anti-people policies.
Gurdaspur : The Congress notched up a big victory in the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha by-election on Sunday as its candidate Sunil Jakhar defeated his Bharatiya Janata Party rival by nearly 2 lakh votes.
Jakhar polled 4,99,752 votes,while BJP’s Swaran Singh Salaria got 3,65,033 votes. Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate Maj Gen Suresh Khajuria (retd) polled only 23,579 votes and occupied third place in the result tally.
Jakhar established his lead from the very beginning of the counting of votes and kept it on till the final result.During the counting that took place at the Sukhnidra Group of institutes here, it all went in favour of Jakhar as Salaria failed to take lead in any of the nine assembly constituencies of Gurdaspur Parliamentary constituency.
The Gurdaspur byelection was necessitated after the demise of sitting MP Vinod Khanna of the BJP, who contested five Lok Sabha elections from Gurdaspur and won four of them.
Speaking on this occasion,Jakhar told mediapersons,“Today, even the traditional vote-bank of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) also left it. They either didn’t turn up to vote or voted for the Congress.”
Jakhar said that his victory should be taken as a victory of the development agenda that he will implement for Gurdaspur Parliamentary constituency.
He termed his victory as the beginning of the downfall of BJP. He said “The downfall of the BJP has begun and the BJP will have to face music in the 2019 general elections.”
Jakhar said that the people of Gurdaspur have also polled in favour of the Congress and against the BJP government at the centre for its anti-people policies namely GST, demoetisation and its inaction in handling the problems faced by the people of India.
Chief minister Amarinder Singh saw the result as “major step in the revival of the Congress”.
“The #Gurdaspur by-election marks another major step in the revival of @INCIndia, it’s clear that party is on upswing ahead of 2019 LS polls,” he said in a tweet.
His party colleague Navjot Singh Sidhu called the outcome a “beautiful Diwali gift, packed with a red ribbon, for our would-be party president Rahul Gandhi”.
Sidhu also said that the Congress’ victory in the Gurdaspur Lok Sabha bypoll was like winning a Test cricket match by an innings and said it would have a demoralising effect on the BJP-SAD combine.