Lok Sabha elections 2024 are in their seventh phase which sees polling in 54 constituencies across 8 states/UTs, including Punjab. Punjab’s Gurdaspur parliamentary constituency saw a voter turnout of 49.10% by 3 PM.
Out of these most voter turnout was recorded in urban assembly constituencies of Punjab, which are Sujanpur (51.00%), Dinanagar (50.70%), Pathankot (52.10%), and Bhoa (54.70%). Sujanpur is majorly Hindu dominated area and also a constituency with strong influence by BJP. Pathankot’s sitting MLA is BJP’s Ashwini Kumar Sharma. These are all BJP strongholds and these strong voter turnouts by afternoon indicate that a duel is likely between AAP and BJP.
Due to absence of 2019 Lok Sabha winner in Gurdaspur, Sunny Deol, BJP is putting their hopes behind Dinesh Singh Babbu who will be going against Congress’ Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Aman Sher Singh Kalsi, and SAD’s Dr. Diljit Singh Cheema.
In 2019, Gurdaspur saw BJP’s celebrity candidate Sunny Deol take the victory with 50% of the votes, beating out Sunil Jakhar, who at the time was contesting on a Congress ticket. However, Deol then announced his departure from politics, leaving BJP with a dilemma. However, this year, trouble piles on for BJP as due to the lack of an alliance with SAD, Gurdaspur will be seeing a 4 way battle between the major political parties.
Sunny Deol had secured the victory with 50.61% percent of the votes, beating Sunil Jakhar’s 43.14% votes. AAP’s Peter Masih had come in third with just 2.51% of the votes. In 2017, Sunil Jakhar had secured the victory for Congress in the by-elections following the death of 2014 victor, actor Vinod Khanna.
In 2019, Gurdaspur constituency saw a voter turnout of 69.52%. 67.70% of male voters exercised their democratic right to vote. However, 71.50% of female voters cast their vote in 2019. Talking about transgender voters, 20.45% of the electors cast their vote.
This year, there are a total of 15,95,300 electors in Gurdaspur out which 8,44,299 are males, 750965 are female and 36 are transgender. Polling will take place in 1,895 pollling stations across the constituency.