In a reversal of the 2022 Assembly election results, the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is on track to win three Assembly bypolls in Gidderbaha, Dera Baba Nanak and Chabbewal, all three of which were vacated by Congress MLAs who were elected to the Lok Sabha. But in its prestige seat of Barnala, the nucleus of the state AAP, the party has lost to the Congress.

Though the AAP has picked up three seats from the Congress, taking its tally in the 117-member Assembly to 95. With its win in Barnala, which was held by two-time AAP MLA Gurmeet Singh Meet Hayer until he became the Sangrur MP, the Congress is up to 17 MLAs in the Assembly. Voting for these four bypolls were held on November 20 with the results announced on Saturday.

In all four bypoll seats, the contest was primarily between the AAP and Congress, with the BJP trailing in third place in every seat. The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD), however, did not contest these bypolls.

In Barnala, the Congress’s Kuldeep Singh Kala Dhillon defeated the AAP’s Harinder Singh Dhaliwal by almost 2,200 votes in a seat that is considered the epicentre of the AAP’s support. The Sangrur Lok Sabha constituency, of which Barnala is a part, was twice represented by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann twice after landslide wins in 2014 and 2019. An AAP rebel, Gurdeep Singh Bathh, appeared to have tilted the scales in the Congress’s favour – Bath got 16,000 votes, far more than the Congress’s winning margin.

In Gidderbaha, the AAP’s Hardeep Singh Dimpy Dhillon is leading his nearest rival and Congress candidate Amrita Warring by over 13,000 votes after nine rounds of counting. The constituency was vacated by Warring’s husband, state Congress chief Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, who was elected as the Ludhiana MP recently.

In Chabbewal though, the AAP has been comfortably placed since counting began. Its candidate Ishank Chabbewal won the seat by a margin of almost 29,000 votes over his nearest Congress rival Ranjit Kumar. SAD-turned-BJP leader Sohan Singh Thandal finished a distant third here. Chabbewal, who is the son of former Congress MLA Dr Raj Kumar Chabbewal, made his poll debut this time after the seat was vacated by his father, who quit the Congress and was elected as the AAP MP from Hoshiarpur.

In Dera Baba Nanak, vacated by former Deputy Chief Minister Sukhjinder Singh Randhawa after he was elected to the Lok Sabha from Gurdaspur, saw a see-saw battle between Randhawa’s wife and Congress candidate Jatinder and the AAP’s candidate Gurdeep Singh Randhawa. The AAP candidate won by over 5,700 votes, with the BJP candidate finishing a distant third.

Manjot Randhawa, the son of the AAP candidate, said the people had “routed out dynastic and arrogant leaders”. “Sukhjinder Randhawa used to call himself the next CM of the state. See what people have done to him. A former Deputy CM’s wife losing with a margin of 5,000 votes conveys a huge message,” Manjot said.

Despite the BJP betting on strong candidates, none was able to make an impact. In Gidderbaha, Manpreet Singh Badal, a former state finance minister and estranged nephew of ex-Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, was trailing by almost 40,000 votes after nine rounds of counting. In Barnala, Kewal Singh Dhillon secured the highest votes among the BJP candidates at just under 18,000 votes.