Recent APP stronghold, sangrur gave chance to all major parties in 70 years

WITH OVER 15.66 lakh voters, Sangrur Lok Sabha constituency will go to polls on June 23. The bypoll was necessitated after Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann became AAP's CM face for the 2022 Assembly polls and subsequemtly won from Dhuri constituency.An AAP stronghold, the constituency has nine Vidhan Sabha seats falling in three districts - Sangrur, Barnala and Malerkotla - of Punjab. All the nine vidhan sabha seats were won by AAP MLAs with record margins. These are Sangrur, Dhuri, Dirba, Sunam, Lehragaga - all in Sangrur district while Barnala, Mehal Kalan and Bhadaur- all in Barnala district and Malerkotla Vidhan Sabha constituency in Malerkotla district. All these constituencies are part of Sangrur Lok Sabha constituency.

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann won from Dhuri while education minister Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer won from Barnala vidhan sabha constituency. In Sunam, AAP's Aman Arora won with over 75,000 votes, which was the maximum winning margin in the state. In Bhadaur, people chose a first timer Labh Singh Ugoke over the then Punjab CM Charanjit Singh Channi.

People here have been voting for AAP since 2014 when Mann was fielded as the party's candidate. Mann had won by over 2 lakh votes in 2014 defeating SAD's Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa. The previous Sangrur Lok Sabha MP Vijay Inder Singla, who had contested on a Congress ticket, couldn't even save his security deposit. However, this will be Mann's first test after forming government as he belongs to this Lok Sabha constituency. His native village Satoj is in Dirba constituency and he also has a house in Sangrur city where he visits on a regular basis.

In 2019 as well, Mann won with a margin of over one lakh votes. Even in the 2017 Assembly polls, of the 20 AAP MLAs, five were from Sangrur Lok Sabha constituency alone and these were Sunam, Dirba, Barnala, Bhadaur and Mehal Kalan.