Assembly bypoll: No celebrations for royal family for 4th time

PATIALA: For the fourth time, Patiala's erstwhile royal family couldn't celebrate its electoral success. In the past three polls, the reason was electoral setback of one of the family members. This time the reason is humane. On the previous three occasions, whenever two members of Patiala royal family contested polls only one would win, thus acting as a dampener.This time Patiala royals avoided celebration following the death of SAD-BJP candidate Bhagwan Dass Juneja's son on the counting day.
"A tragedy has struck the Juneja family. Hence, we have decided not to celebrate our win. There will be no pomp and show. We are just thanking our supporters and sympathizers, who are turning up at our residence," said Jai Inder Kaur, daughter of the newly-elected Patiala (Urban) MLA Preneet Kaur.
The circumstances, which prevented Patiala royals from celebrating their electoral success to the fullest, had first unfolded in 2009, when the family, for the first time, had simultaneously fielded two of its members as Congress candidates in general elections.
While Preneet had won Patiala seat with an impressive margin of over 97000 votes, the couple's son Raninder Singh lost to Punjab deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal's wife Harsimrat Kaur Badal in Bathinda by over 1.2 lakh votes.
The royal family witnessed the same phenomenon in 2012 general elections. Capt Amarinder Singh registered win with comfortable margin from his pocket borough Patiala (Urban) assembly segment, Raninder again lost to senior Akali leader Surjit Singh Rakhra in neighbouring Samana constituency.
In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, Amarinder defeated BJP senior leader Arun Jaitley in Amritsar but Preneet lost to AAP candidate Dr Dharamvira Gandhi.