By IANS,
Chandigarh : The prestige fight between Punjab’s leading political families of Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal and former Congress Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on the Bathinda Lok Sabha seat was Saturday won by the Badals even though the Congress had the upper hand on eight out of the state’s 13 parliamentary seats.
Harsimrat Kaur, the daughter-in-law of Chief Minister Badal and wife of Akali Dal President and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Badal, won with a margin of 120,948 votes over her Congress rival and Amarinder Singh’s son, Raninder Singh.
It was a bitter fight between both the political families over the Bathinda Lok Sabha seat.
But Amarinder Singh could draw solace as his wife Preneet Kaur won the Patiala Lok Sabha seat for the third time. She defeated her Akali Dal rival Prem Singh Chandumajra by 97,389 votes.
The Congress, which had won two seats in the 2004 general elections, did much better with win and leads on eight seats.
The ruling Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) combine won or led on five seats Saturday evening.
BJP’s candidate Navjot Singh Sidhu led on the Amritsar seat after trailing for the better part of the day.
In the adjoining Gurdaspur seat, actor Vinod Khanna was trailing former Punjab minister Pratap Singh Bajwa. Khanna was seeking re-election on this seat for the fourth time.
In the newly created seat of Fatehgarh Sahib (reserved), former Akali leader Sukhdev Singh Libra of Congress defeated outgoing Lok Sabha Deputy Speaker Charanjit Singh Atwal by over 34,000 votes.
Youth leader Vijay Inder Singla of the Congress trounced senior Akali leader and former union minister Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa in the Sangrur constituency by over 40,000 votes.
On the Ludhiana seat, all-India Congress spokesman Manish Tewari was leading by over 110,000 votes over his Akali Dal rival.
In the Jalandhar (reserved) seat, singer Hans Raj Hans of the Akali Dal lost to Mohinder Singh Kaypee of the Congress by nearly 36,500 votes.
In the new Khadoor Sahib seat, millionaire industrialist Rana Gurjit Singh was defeated by his Akali Dal rival Rattan Singh Ajnala by over 32,000 votes.
In Faridkot (reserved) constituency, Paramjit Kaur Gulshan of Akali Dal defeated young Congress leader Sukhwinder Singh Danny by over 62,000 votes.
The declaration of result on the Hoshiarpur (reserved) seat was held up after one electronic voting machine (EVM) developed a snag. Congress candidate Santosh Chaudhary was leading on this seat by a slender margin of 289 votes.