June 4th 2024.
In a surprising turn of events, the recently held Lok Sabha polls saw some prominent political figures switching their allegiances and emerging victorious, while others faced defeat. Among the notable winners were Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia, industrialist Naveen Jindal, and UP Minister Jitin Prasada, who had all defected to the saffron party.
Scindia, who holds the Aviation portfolio, secured a resounding victory from his family stronghold of Guna constituency in Madhya Pradesh, with a massive margin of over five lakh votes. This was a significant turnaround for Scindia, who had lost the same seat to BJP's Krishna Pal Singh in the 2019 elections. Guna has been represented by Scindia's family for four consecutive terms, beginning with his grandmother Vijaya Raje Scindia, also known as the Rajmata of Gwalior, who was a BJP member.
Another noteworthy defection was that of Naveen Jindal, a two-time MP and prominent industrialist, who joined the BJP in March this year after being associated with the Congress for over two decades. Jindal went on to win from Kurukshetra in Haryana with a comfortable margin of over 29,000 votes.
Jitin Prasada, son of late Congress leader Jitendra Prasada, also left the party three years ago to join the BJP and was fielded from Pilibhit constituency in Uttar Pradesh, where he emerged victorious with a margin of over 1.64 lakh votes. However, not all defectors were as fortunate, as former Haryana Congress president Ashok Tanwar and Jharkhand Mukti Morcha MLA Sita Soren, who joined the BJP this year, faced defeat.
Tanwar, who had joined the BJP earlier this year after a brief stint with the AAP, lost to Congress' Kumari Selja from Sirsa constituency by a significant margin of over 2.68 lakh votes. Similarly, Sita Soren, sister-in-law of former Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren, lost the election from Dumka by over 22,000 votes.
In Punjab, former Union minister Preneet Kaur, wife of Congress heavyweight Captain Amarinder Singh, joined the BJP this year but lost the elections from Patiala constituency, which she had won four times previously. Another prominent defector in Punjab, Ravneet Bittu, who had won as a Congress candidate in 2019 before switching to the BJP, also faced defeat in the Ludhiana constituency.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) also had its share of defectors in Punjab, with sitting MLA Raj Kumar Chabbewal and ex-MLAs Gurpreet Singh GP and Pawan Tinu joining the party. While Chabbewal emerged victorious from Hoshiarpur, Tinu and GP were not as fortunate and faced defeat in Jalandhar and Fatehgarh Sahib respectively.
Overall, the 2022 Lok Sabha polls saw a significant number of political defections, with some turning out to be successful for the defectors while others not as fortunate. It remains to be seen how these defections and victories will shape the political landscape in the coming years.
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