New Delhi: On 15 February, the Aam Aadmi Party candidate from Amritsar East, Jeevan Jyot Kaur, tweeted, “In a 5-star hotel in Amritsar, two big leaders of Congress and Akali have match-fixing regarding Amritsar East seat. So much fear of a common woman? Do as much fixing as you want, the defeat of both of you is certain”.
अमृतसर के एक 5 सितारा होटल में कॉन्ग्रेस और अकाली के बहुत बड़े दो नेताओं में मैच फिक्सिंग हुई है अमृतसर ईस्ट सीट को लेकर ।
एक आम महिला का इतना डर?
जितनी मर्ज़ी फिक्सिंग करलो आप दोनों की हार निश्चित है।
The battle is between
People of Amritsar + AAP
vs
Cong + SAD— Jeevan Jyot (@jeevanjyot20) February 15, 2022
Kaur’s predictions about the defeat of these big leaders proved true Thursday, as the first-time candidate managed to defeat political heavyweights like Punjab Congress President (and sitting Amritsar East MLA) Navjot Singh Sidhu, Shiroman Akali Dal’s Bikram Singh Majithia (who is SAD President Sukhbir Singh Badal’s brother-in-law) and former IAS officer and BJP candidate Jagmohan Singh Raju.
While Kaur won with 39,520 votes, according to the ECI website, Sidhu — who was in second place — received 32,807 votes and Majithia got 25,112 votes. Raju got 7,255 votes.
Journey from social worker to AAP volunteer and MLA
Hoshiarpur-born 50-year-old Kaur is popularly known as the ‘pad-woman’ of Amritsar for running a programme under which women inmates were provided with eco-friendly sanitary napkins in jails across Punjab. The project — titled ‘EcoShe’ — was a collaboration between a Swiss company and the Kaur-chaired Sri Hemkunt Education (SHE).
Kaur had set up SHE in 1995-96. The organisation runs a school for the underprivileged and also works to “develop sustainable and self-reliant communities”. According to her website, Kaur has also adopted a slum in Jalandhar under ‘Mission Abad’. The programme is aimed at rehabilitating people living in slums and in poverty.
Kaur joined AAP in March 2016. Ahead of the 2017 Punjab assembly election, she was the only woman volunteer for the the AAP in Amritsar’s Majitha region. After the elections, she was appointed co-president for the party’s women’s wing. She worked as AAP’s campaign coordinator for the 2019 parliamentary elections, and for AAP national spokesperson Raghav Chadha ahead of the 2020 Delhi assembly elections. Kaur has been also been the spokesperson for AAP Punjab.
Her campaign for the 2022 elections in Amritsar East focussed on issues of medical facilities and good education, as well as garbage disposal, power supply and clean drinking water. She focused on door-to-door campaigns and ‘Jan-Sansad’ sessions, which were organised daily in different wards of her constituency.
The first-time contestant had also attacked Sidhu for alleged “ill-treatment” of his mother and claimed that Majithia, who has been accused in a drugs case, had an uncertain future.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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