Lok Sabha polls: Politically influential Malwa belt holds key in Punjab

Chandigarh: The Malwa belt in Punjab is always considered the biggest and politically influential region, particularly during assembly elections, where if a party secures maximum assembly seats in this belt, it can easily form the government in the state.

Punjab can broadly be divided into three regions — Malwa, Majha and Doaba.

Beyond the Sutlej river, it is called the Malwa region, the Doaba region falls between the Beas and Sutlej rivers, while Majha falls between the Ravi and the Beas rivers.

As far as the parliamentary polls are concerned, eight seats – Ludhiana, Bathinda, Ferozepur, Faridkot (SC), Fatehgarh Sahib (SC), Patiala, Anandpur Sahib and Sangrur fall in the Malwa region.

Two seats — Hoshairpur (SC) and Jalandhar (SC) - are in the Doaba region. The Majha region broadly comprises three parliamentary seats — Gurdaspur, Amritsar and Khadoor Sahib.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Congress won eight parliamentary seats in Punjab, bucking the pro-Modi trend seen across the northern and central India in that general election.

It won Ludhiana, Anandpur Sahib, Patiala, Fatehgarh Sahib, Faridkot from the Malwa region, and Amritsar and Khadoor Sahib in the Majha region. It also won Jalandhar which is in the Doaba region. However, in the 2023 by-election, AAP wrested the Jalandhar seat from the Congress.

The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) won from Bathinda and Ferozepur, which are in the Malwa region. AAP managed to win the Sangrur seat, which is also in the Malwa belt.

The BJP won the Hoshiarpur (Doaba) and Gurdaspur (Majha) seats. However, in the 2022 by-elections, SAD (Amritsar) won the Sangrur Lok Sabha seat while AAP won the Jalandhar seat in 2023 by-election.

The Malwa region has 69 assembly seats out of total 117 in the state.

This region’s sway over Punjab politics can be gauged from the fact that many leaders like Parkash Singh Badal, Amarinder Singh, Rajinder Kaur Bhattal, Beant Singh, Bhagwant Mann who became chief ministers of the state hailed from this belt.

The Malwa belt was the epicentre of the farmers’ agitation in 2020-21 against the now-repealed Centre’s three farm laws.

In the 2022 assembly polls, AAP swept the Malwa belt by winning 66 out of 69 seats in this region.

The Majha region is also significant as far as politics is concerned. It is called the ‘Panthic’ belt. This belt is home to the Golden Temple in Amritsar.

The Doaba belt has a sizeable population of the scheduled caste (SC) community. The SC community constitutes around 32 per cent of Punjab's population which is the highest in the country.

Maximum non-resident Indians (NRIs) in Punjab also come from this region.