Amarinder happy with poll results

CHANDIGARH: Within a day of the courts cracking the whip on him for his controversial decisions on liquor vends distribution and appointment of DSPs, CM Amarinder Singh had a reason to smile on Saturday as the Congress trounced the SAD-BJP combine overwhelmingly in both the by-elections in the state.
If in Kapurthala it routed the Shiromani Akali Dal by an unexpected margin of over 13,000 votes, in Garhshankar, the Congress turned the tables on the BJP and wrested the Vidhan Sabha seat defeating its candidate by a huge margin of over 19,000 votes.
Making deep inroads in the rural vote bank, the Congress is reported to have taken a lead on the SAD and the BJP in all the villages in the two constituencies.
More than the Congress'' victory, it is the margin by which the ruling party trounced its rivals that has come as surprise in the political circles.Enthused over the party''s big victory, Amarinder termed it as a vindication of his government''s policies and programmes in the state.
"The big margins reflected people''s unflinching faith and confidence in democratic process besides their endorsement to the initiatives taken by the state government with regard to passing of the Punjab Termination of Agreements Act, smooth procurement of crops and uninterrupted power supply," the chief minister stated.
Amarinder, who demonstrated keen interest in the campaigning this time and addressed more than 60 gathering in the course of his 10 days of campaigning, obviously stands to gain considerably over his political rivals who had been gunning for him.
For the BJP, the Garhshankar has proved to be a proverbial Waterloo as after winning 27,308 votes in this assembly segment during the Lok Sabha election four months ago, it tumbled down to 18,000 this time.
The BJP practically had to bite the dust in the constituency which was represented by its state president Avinash Khanna before he got elected to the Lok Sabha. Avinash, incidentally, had won in 2002 assembly election by an impressive margin of more than 14,000 votes.
In Kapurthala, the SAD had been harping largely on the declining stock of the Congress.
SAD president Parkash Singh Badal camped in the constituency for more than 10 days and made sure that the Congress did not succeed in manipulating the poll results.
Yet, the Congress'' victory margin of more than 13,000 votes only established that the party had consolidated its position considerably.