Gurdaspur Lok Sabha Election Result: Sunny Deol packs a punch on debut, defeats Congress heavyweight Sunil Jakhar by over 80,000 votes

Gurdaspur Lok Sabha Election Result: Actor-turned-politician Sunny Deol has defeated Congress heavyweight and sitting MP Sunil Jakhar from the Gurdaspur. He defeated Jakhar by a margin of 82,459 votes. Sunny Deol got 551177 votes with 50.61 per cent vote share. His closest rival Sunil Jakhar could secure just 474168 vote with 43.14 per cent vote share

He is the second Bollywood actor to win this constituency. Before Sunny Deol, Vinod Khanna represented this seat four times — in 1998, 1999, 2004 and 2014.

Lok Sabha Election 2019: Full Coverage

Gurdaspur was with the Congress from 1985 to 1998. Then Vinod Khanna wrested this seat from Congress and held it from 1998 to 2009 for the BJP. In 2009, Vinod Khanna lost to Congress leader Sardar Partap Singh Bajwa by over 9000 votes. He won back the seat in the next election by over 1.3 lakh votes.

GURDASPUR RESULT LATEST UPDATES

3:15 pm: Actor-turned Sunny Deol continues to maintain a healthy lead. He is currently leading by over 70000 votes in Gurdaspur.

SUNIL JAKHAR: 434644
SUNNY DEOL: 518136

9:00 am: Sunny Deol is leading from Gurdaspur. He has taken lead over Sunil Jakhar of Congress.

8:05 | Counting begins! 

The counting of votes has begun. Here, the fight is between actor-turned Sunny Deol and Congress leader Sunil Jakhar.

In 2014, Vinod Khanna got 4,82,255 votes with a 46.25 per cent vote share whereas Partap Singh Bajwa could secure just 3,46,190 votes with a 33.20 per cent vote share. However, Vinod Khanna passed away in 2017 necessitating elections and Congress leader Sunil Kumar Jakhar emerged victorious over BJP’s Swaran Salaria.

Gurdaspur is one of the 13 parliamentary constituencies of Punjab where the Congress is currently in power. The Lok Sabha constituency of Gurdaspur has nine assembly segments — Bhoa, Sujanpur, Pathankot, Dinanagar, Gurdaspur, Dera Baba Nanak, Batala, and Qadian. Presently, the grand old party holds seven seats, while the saffron party and its alliance partner in the state Akali Dal have one seat each.

In the last assembly election in 2017, the Congress swept the state by winning 77 out of 117 seats with over 38 per cent vote share. Arvind Kejriwal-led AAP emerged as the second largest political outfit and won 20 seats with close to 24 per cent vote share. However, its performance was below expectation. The incumbent SAD-BJP government suffered a major defeat and its tally was reduced from 56 in 2012 to 15 in 2017.

Gurdaspur district has a total population of over 22 lakh. It has a 44 per cent majority of Hindus closely followed by Sikhs close to 44 per cent. As per the Election Commission 2009 reports, the Parliamentary constituency had a total of 13,18,967 electorates — female 6,39,971 and male 6,78,996).