It's a landslide for the Akali Dal-BJP alliance in Punjab

The Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party alliance has won 93 out of the 117 seats to the Punjab assembly, elections for which were held on Friday. The Akali-BJP combine missed a four-fifths majority in the assembly by just one seat.

The ruling Congress, which won 87 seats in the February 1992 election in the face of an Akali boycott, won 14 seats. Twenty three members of the Rajinder Kaur Bhattal ministry were humbled at the hustings.

The Congress also lost the by-election to the Lok Sabha in Ropar. Former Union home minister Buta Singh lost the election to the Akali Dal's Satwinder Kaur by 129,000 votes.

The Akali Dal won 75 assembly seats -- its highest tally ever -- while its ally, the BJP, won 18 seats.

Independents won six seats, the Communist Party of India won two seats while the Akali Dal (Mann) and its ally, the Bahujan Samaj Party, won one seat each.

After remaining out of power for 17 years, Akali Dal leader Parkash Singh Badal, is all set to form a government for the third time in the state. The Akalis boycotted the last assembly election five years ago.

Prominent Akali winners included Badal, Captain Kanwaljit Singh, Manjit Singh Calcutta and Prem Singh Lalpura. Among the BJP winners were state president Balram Dass Tandon, former state president Madan Mohan Mittal and general secretary Manoranjan Kalia. However, the Dal suffered a severe jolt when its secretary general Sukhdev Singh Dhindsa lost the contest in Sunam.

The Akalis registered massive gains in the rural areas, while the BJP showed a strong presence in the urban areas.

The BJP won six seats from the Malwa region, gaining three. It won four new seats in the Doaba region. Out of the seven seats the BJP won in the Majha region, five were new seats.

The assembly triumph marked a hat-trick for the Akali Dal in elections held during the last nine months in Punjab.

The Akali Dal-BSP alliance won 11 out of the 13 parliamentary seats last May. The Akalis won eight Lok Sabha seats, while the other three seats were captured by the BSP.

Then the Akalis made a clean sweep in the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee poll in December, decimating the Akali Dal (Mann) headed by Simranjit Singh Mann.

Outgoing Chief Minister Rajinder Kaur Bhattal won her Lehra Gaga seat. Badal won both his electoral contests, defeating Simranjit Singh Mann, the radical Akali Dal leader, by 11,000 votes in the Quila Raipur constituency, and recording an easy triumph in Lambi.

It was a bad day for Mann. He was relegated to the fourth position in Sirhind constituency.

Twentythree of Bhatt's ministers were defeated. Only a few survived -- Transport Minister Tej Parkash Singh, Minister of State for Local Government Ramesh Dogra, Minister of State for Co-operation Harminder Singh Jassi, Minister of State for Transport Harbans Lal.

Tej Prakash Singh, son of the assassinated chief minister Beant Singh and the Congress candidate, won the Jalandhar cantonment assembly seat. He defeated Surjit Singh Minhas of the Akali Dal by 3,600 votes.

G S Badal, the likely chief minister's brother, won the Panj Grain seat defeating his nearest Congress rival and sitting legislator Gurcharan Singh by a margin of 13,367 votes. The Congress won this seat with about 43 per cent votes in 1992, against 41 per cent polled by the BSP.

State assembly speaker Dilbag Singh Daleke was defeated in Tarn Taran.

In the by-election in the Ropar (reserved) parliamentary constituency, Satwinder Kaur from the Akali Dal defeated Buta Singh in a four-cornered contest by a margin of more than 129,000 votes.

She polled 394,508 votes, while Buta Singh -- who was denied a ticket to contest the general election last May because he was chargesheeted in the hawala case -- won 265,308 votes.

The by-election was caused by the death of Akali Dal MP Basant Singh Khalsa in a road accident last year.

Satwinder Kaur's triumph was not an isolated instance. Women candidates improved their tally in the state assembly, winning seven seats compared to six seats the last time around.

Of the five women candidates fielded by the Akali Dal, four romped home, while of the eight fielded by the Congress only one -- Bhattal -- made it to the winning post.

The BJP, which had only one woman legislator the last time, bagged two seats this time.

The remaining 35 women candidates, including 16 independents, were rejected by the electorate.