New Delhi: Punjab saw one of the most astonishing wins with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) winning with majority votes in the 2022 assembly elections. The politician that symbolised a part of the historic win of AAP was Jeevan Jyot Kaur from Amritsar East massively defeating veteran politicians Navjot Sidhu of the Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal’s Bikram Singh Majithia.
As per the voters, this was a typical David vs Goliath battle with Sidhu being the chief of the Punjab Congress and Majithia being SAD’s ‘Majhe Da Jarnail’ (General of the Majha region), apart from being the brother-in-law of party chief Sukhbir Badal.
Notably, this is the first time Sidhu and Majithia have been defeated in their respective political careers. This is their first-ever electoral loss.
Who is Jeevan Jyot Kaur?
Jeevan Jyot Kaur is the AAP’s district president of Amritsar (Urban). Besides, she is regarded as Amritsar’s ‘pad woman’ for her promising work on promoting menstrual hygiene.
She has also been the chairperson of the S.H.E. Society that creates awareness about sanitary pads made out of plastics and distributes reusable sanitary pads to women.
Reportedly, she has also collaborated with a Swiss-based company to provide reusable pads to women.
In an article written by the leading daily, The Quint on January considered Jeevan Jyot as a tough competitor to Sidhu in the assembly elections and not Majithia.
Jeevan Jyot’s journey in politics is inspiring as being a commoner of Punjab, she fought against two of the most challenging politicians and registered a trademark to her name in the history of Punjab assembly elections so far.
“Ran a Low Profile, Issue-based campaign”
“These two leaders (Sidhu and Majithia) in different ways represent all that’s wrong with Punjab politics. Sidhu didn’t do anything in the seat, Majithia has allegations against him. We didn’t want their personality contest to divert from real issues,” says an AAP functionary closely involved with Jeevan Jyot’s campaign.
The functionary also stated that the party’s main aim was to focus on the neglected issues that affected people, including poor civic infrastructure in slums, lack of adequate healthcare and sanitation.
