Hoshiarpur elects AAP's Raj Kumar Chabbewal to the Lok Sabha

Who: Voters of Hoshiarpur, a Lok Sabha seat reserved for Scheduled Castes; Dr Raj Kumar Chabbewal of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the winner; Yamini Gomar (Congress), Anita Som Parkash (BJP), Sohan Singh Thandal (Shiromani Akali Dal), Ranjit Kumar (BSP) and Jaswant Singh (Shiromani Akali Dal Amritsar); and Jeevan Singh Tamil of the Bahujan Dravida Party (BDP), one of 16 candidates in IndiaVotes' results table.

What: Hoshiarpur voted on 1 June 2024 in the seventh phase, and counting was on 4 June. Chabbewal polled 3,03,859 votes (32.22%) and beat Gomar, who polled 2,59,748, by 44,111. Anita Som Parkash had 1,99,994, Thandal 91,789, Ranjit Kumar 48,214 and Jaswant Singh 20,923. Jeevan Singh Tamil was seventh with 4,621 votes, or 0.49%. Turnout was 59.2% of 16,01,826 electors, and 5,552 voters chose NOTA.

The Tribune reported in May 2024 that the BDP candidate, named in its report as Jeevan Kumar, was a Dalit from Tamil Nadu who had converted to Sikhism and a lawyer by profession. Onmanorama describes Jeevan Singh as the BDP's national president, a Supreme Court lawyer from Thoothukudi who began reading Gurbani in 2014 and was initiated into Sikhism in 2023. It says he stood in Hoshiarpur as a tribute to Kanshi Ram's 1996 victory there, and that the BDP, which began as a movement in 2019 and became a party by 2023, follows Periyar and Kanshi Ram.

Where: Hoshiarpur constituency, Punjab.

Why it mattered: The seat went to AAP. The same count saw the jailed Amritpal Singh win Khadoor Sahib as an independent by 1,97,120 votes, according to The Tribune. In Hoshiarpur itself, Kanshi Ram's party, the BSP, finished fifth with 5.11%, while the BDP's candidate won under half of one per cent.