Punjab Elections: AAP's Vijay Singla wins from Mansa; defeats Cong's Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu

The Aam Aadmi Party is heading for a clean sweep in Punjab Assembly Election 2022, with Congress being whitewashed in all the five states facing vote count today.

As the counting of the votes for the Punjab Election 2022 was held on Thursday, its results have come as a surprise. AAP candidate Vijay Singla has won from the Mansa constituency against Congress candidate Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu Moose Wala by a margin of 99,200 votes.

According to the Election Commission, AAP is leading on 92 seats, while BJP and Congress have won from 2 and 18 seats respectively. Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu Moose Wala received 21.12% of vote shares, while Dr Vijay Singla has received 57.57% of vote share, defeating Shubhdeep Singh Sidhu. 

The assembly seat in the Mansa region is constituency No. 96. The seat is categorised as general and semi-urban. Mansa is part of the Bathinda Lok Sabha/Parliamentary constituency. There were a total of 2,18,339 eligible electors in the constituency, of which 1,02,802 were male and 1,15,534 female and 3 registered voters were of the third gender. The gender ratio in Mansa is 1,124 female voters for every 1,000 male voters. 

AAP thanks Punjab for historic win

As per the latest Election Commission of India trends, AAP has won 49 seats and is leading in 42 seats, expecting to cross the 91 mark in the 117-member assembly. Congress candidates are ahead in only 12 constituencies, having won only 6 seats. On the other hand, the SAD-BSP alliance and the tie-up led by BJP are leading from 4 and 2 seats respectively. AAP candidate Bhagwant Mann was chosen as the Chief Minister face. 

Addressing the people after the landslide mandate, AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal thanked the citizens of Punjab, calling it a massive 'inquilaab'.

"Punjab waalo tussi kamaal kar ditta', we all love you, Punjab. The results are a massive 'inquilaab', big seats have shaken up," said Kejriwal. 

The counting of votes has been taking place from 8 a.m. in the state. Nearly 117 centres at 66 locations were set up where results are being recorded from electronic voting machines. Three-tier security measures have been arranged, with the deployment of 45 companies of Central Armed Police Forces at all the 117 counting centres. As many as 7500 personnel have been deployed as security during the counting process.