Congress picks leaders, poet to campaign for Ludhiana West bypoll.
Ludhiana: The Congress is rolling out its star power in the high-stakes Ludhiana West assembly byelection, with 40 senior members — including sitting chief ministers, Rajya Sabha MPs, and popular public figures — lined up to campaign for party candidate Bharat Bhushan Ashu.
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They even have a poet to deliver the punch.
Himachal Pradesh chief minister,
, Rajasthan's former deputy CM Sachin Pilot, and actor-politician Raj Babbar are among the headline names expected to hit the campaign trail. Rajya Sabha MP and noted poet Imran Pratapgarhi, famed for his fiery verse-laced speeches in Parliament, is also slated to join the campaign, in what Congress leaders hope will galvanise voters with both emotion and rhetoric.
Several senior Congress members from Punjab, including former CM Charanjit Singh Channi, MLA Rana Gurjeet Singh, and former minister Pargat Singh, are camping in Ludhiana already to rally support for Ashu, as the party eyes a broader political resurgence ahead of the 2027 assembly elections.
Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, state's leader of opposition Pratap Singh Bajwa, former Chhattisgarh CM Bhupesh Baghel, and Himachal Pradesh deputy CM, Mukesh Agnihotri, also feature on the star campaigner list.
Other prominent figures include MPs Manish Tewari and Kanhaiya Kumar, spokesperson Pawan Khera, and Delhi-based bigwigs Alka Lamba and Sandeep Dikshit.
Rana Gurjeet Singh, the bypoll in-charge for Ludhiana West, confirms that the high command has cleared the full list. "Most of them will join the campaign by next week, barring unavoidable exceptions like Bajwa-ji, who is abroad currently," he said. Imran Pratapgarhi's upcoming campaign appearance is being particularly awaited by local Congress leaders, who believe his poetic critique of the central govt could lend emotional resonance to Ashu's bid.
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The Ludhiana West bypoll has assumed outsized political significance, not only for Congress's revival hopes in Punjab but also due to Aam Aadmi Party's attempt to retain the seat via its candidate Sanjeev Arora — a Rajya Sabha MP. Opposition parties have accused AAP of seeking to vacate Arora's upper house seat to make way for Delhi's former chief minister Arvind Kejriwal. As the campaign intensifies, the bypoll is shaping up as a critical litmus test — not just for Ludhiana, but for broader alignments ahead of Punjab's 2027 battle.
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