Malvika Sood Sachar, sister of actor Sonu Sood, lost to Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Amandeep Kaur Arora in the recently-concluded Punjab assembly elections. She had contested in the Moga constituency as the Indian National Congress (INC) candidate.
The Moga constituency had been a stronghold of the Congress party for over four decades, with the party winning the seat six times from 1977 to 2017.
However, Malvika Sood lost to Arora by over 20000 votes, as per the data from the Election Commission of India (ECI). While Sood received 38125 votes, Arora secured the seat with 58813 votes.
When his sister had joined Congress party in January 2022, a month ahead of the assembly polls, and announced that she would contest from Moga, Sonu Sood had wished her luck, but had said that his own work as an actor and humanitarian would continue “without any political affiliations or distractions.”
The actor had later also said that he would not be campaigning for his sister.
However, in February, an FIR was registered against Sonu Sood, after the police received information that he was allegedly campaigning for his sister at Landeke village in Moga, on the day of the polls.
During the campaign, the actor also reportedly gave speeches reminding Moga’s voters of his charitable work, especially during the pandemic.
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On the day of the polls, Punjab police had seized Sonu Sood’s car based on reports of “suspicious activity” at a polling booth in Moga. The actor claimed that had discovered that bribes were being distributed by the opposition party Akali Dal at the booths and he had come to know about threat calls at various poll booths, and had stepped out to “check and ensure fair elections.”
As per the results released by ECI, the AAP secured a historic win in Punjab, clinching 92 of the 117 seats, while Congress won 18 seats and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured two seats.