Despite little resistance from protesting farmer unions and being able to campaign in villages of their constituencies unlike the Lok Sabha elections, and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) not in the picture, the BJP in Punjab put up a poor show in the four Assembly bypolls on Saturday, highlighting the need for an overhaul in the coming months.

“The road ahead is challenging for us and we really need to work hard if we want to make an impact in the 2027 Assembly polls,” a BJP leader said, requesting anonymity.

BJP candidates in Gidderbaha, Dera Baba Nanak, and Chabbewal forfeited their deposits while in Barnala the party came third and it’s nominee was able to save the deposit. This comes months after the the party registered a blank in the Lok Sabha polls despite an increased vote share of 18.5%, almost double from the 2019 parliamentary polls in which it won two of the state’s 13 Lok Sabha seats.

As the Lok Sabha debacle triggered calls from within the party urging it to be aggressive as only an improved vote share was not enough to win seats, state BJP president Sunil Jakhar submitted his resignation to BJP national president J P Nadda, who has yet to accept it.

The BJP went into the bypolls facing the anger of farmers over poor procurement of paddy and the shortage of di-ammonium phosphate (DAP), a key fertiliser for Kharif crops. It had pinned its hopes on Gidderbaha as its candidate was former state finance minister Manpreet Singh Badal, who won the seat as a SAD candidate in 1995, 1997, 2002 and 2021, and was active in the constituency since August. However, he managed to poll only 12,227 votes.

In the Lok Sabha elections, BJP’s Faridkot candidate Hans Raj Hans had managed to poll 14,850 votes In the Gidderabaha segment despite protests by farmers, showing that the party further lost ground here since then.

“To claim victory over an increased vote share is nothing but a lame excuse,” a BJP leader who did not wish to be named told The Indian Express.

The result in Dera Baba Nanak was also a shock for the BJP as its candidate Ravi Karan Kahlon, who lost the 2022 polls by a narrow margin of 466 votes on a Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) ticket to Congress’s Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa, managed to poll only 6,505 votes and forfeited his deposit. The son of former Assembly Speaker Nirmal Singh Kahlon, Ravi, who switched from the SAD to the BJP in May, had hoped that the Akali votes would consolidate in his favour. But that failed to happen. In the Lok Sabha polls, the SAD managed to secure 17,099 votes here while BJP candidate Dinesh Babbu polled 5,981 votes.

In Chabbewal, former four-time MLA and ex-SAD minister Sohan Singh Thandal, who joined the BJP in October, forfeited his deposit as he managed to secure only 8,692 votes. In 2022, as an SAD candidate, Thandal had polled 19,329 votes while in the recent Lok Sabha polls, the BJP’s Dilbag Rai had managed to secure only 9,472 votes as the SAD got 11,935 votes.

Barnala was the only seat where the BJP managed to save its deposit as its candidate Kewal Singh Dhillon, who was active in the constituency and distributed ration cards to thousands of families, polled 17,958 votes. Dhillon had joined the BJP in June 2022 and unsuccessfully contested the Sangrur Lok Sabha bypoll.

In 2022, the BJP’s Dhiraj Kumar managed to poll 9,122 votes while in the Lok Sabha polls, party candidate Arvind Khanna secured over 19,000 votes and the SAD candidate polled 5,724 votes.

“People vote differently when it comes to Lok Sabha polls, Assembly polls and bypolls. As the records show, usually bypolls are won by the party in power. However, we will sit and introspect on the results to chart our future course of action,” said Punjab BJP media in-charge Vineet Joshi even as Badal, Dhillon and Thandal exuded confidence of a good showing in the 2027 Assembly polls.