Ludhiana West bypoll: Prestige at stake for AAP, Congress

Time of India

5 hours ago

The
Ludhiana West bypoll
on Thursday will be a litmus test for the ruling AAP as it seeks to maintain its hold over Punjab, while the Congress looks to regain its foothold over the urban constituency which it held for six times in the past.
While the main contest is between the AAP and Congress, the bypoll outcome will also shed light on how the BJP performs among urban voters in Punjab.
The bypoll is also going to be a test of the leadership of SAD president
Sukhbir Singh Badal
as his party looks to resurrect itself after a series of crushing electoral losses.
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Polling for the Ludhiana West bypoll will be held from 7 am till 6 pm on June 19 and the counting will be held on June 23.
The Ludhiana West assembly seat fell vacant following the death of AAP MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi in January.
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There are a total of 14 candidates in the fray for the by-election.
The ruling
Aam Aadmi Party
has fielded Rajya Sabha member
Sanjeev Arora
for the bypoll.
Arora (61) is a Ludhiana-based industrialist and is also known for his social welfare work. He runs the Krishna Pran Breast Cancer Charitable Trust. Arora has been a member of the Rajya Sabha since 2022.
The opposition Congress has placed its bet on former minister and Punjab Congress working president
Bharat Bhushan Ashu
(51).
Ashu served as MLA twice from this seat in 2012 and 2017. He was defeated by Gogi by a margin of 7,512 votes in the 2022 Punjab assembly polls. Ashu was food and civil supplies minister in the previous Congress regime.
The BJP has field senior leader Jiwan Gupta. He is a member of the core committee of Punjab BJP. He was earlier the party's state general secretary.
The SAD named Parupkar Singh Ghuman as its candidate for the bypoll. Ghuman is a lawyer and the former president of Ludhiana bar association.
The Ludhiana West bypoll is seen as a litmus test for Punjab Chief Minister
Bhagwant Mann
and the ruling party's national leadership which aggressively campaigned to retain this seat.
The bypoll is important as its outcome will throw light on the popularity of the AAP regime's policies and programmes among urban voters in the constituency.
In November last year, the AAP had won three out of four assembly bypolls.
Prior to that the party had party faced a drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls in which it could win only three of 13 parliamentary constituencies.
The AAP leadership urged voters to vote for Arora with party supremo
Arvind Kejriwal
announcing that the AAP candidate will be made the cabinet minister if he is elected in the bypoll.
Mann described the election as a battle between "humility" and "arrogance" while highlighting that Arora represents "simplicity" while the Congress
nominee
is known for "arrogance."
Kejriwal lauded Arora for his philanthropic efforts and assured the public that with Arora's election, Ludhiana West would witness "unparalleled development."
Stakes are also high for the Congress as it would want to wrest the seat, which it had won six times in the past.
Punjab Congress leaders, including party's general secretary in-charge Punjab and former Chhattisgarh chief minister Bhupesh Baghel, former Chief Minister and MP Charanjit Singh Channi, Punjab Congress president Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, Amritsar MP Gurjit Singh Aujla, MLAs Rana Gurjit Singh, and Pargat Singh campaigned for Ashu.
While Ashu reminded voters of the previous record of development in the constituency, he said that his electoral fight was not against Arora, but Kejriwal, who was allegedly fighting for his own backdoor entry to Rajya Sabha from Punjab.
Prestige is at stake for the BJP in the bypoll as well. Leaders, including Union Ministers Hardeep Singh Puri, Ravneet Singh Bittu, Delhi Chief Minister Rekha Gupta, Haryana Chief Minister Nayab Singh Saini, BJP leader Tarun Chugh, canvassed for Gupta.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, BJP's Ravneet Singh Bittu had led from the Ludhiana West assembly segment, which is part of the Ludhiana parliamentary seat. However, he lost to Congress nominee Amrinder Singh Raja Warring.
In the 117-member Punjab assembly, the AAP has 94 legislators, the Congress has 16 MLAs, Shiromani Akali Dal has three, BJP two, and the Bahujan Samaj Party one. One seat is held by an Independent.
Campaigning for the high-stakes by-election ended on Tuesday evening.
A total of 1,75,469 voters are eligible to exercise their franchise, 85,371 of them women and 10 of third gender.
There will be a total of 194 polling stations for the bypoll and 100 percent live webcasting of polling stations, officials said.
The voting process will be monitored in real-time from the integrated command control centre located at the district administrative complex. As many as 235 CCTV cameras have been installed at polling stations, said officials.
Deputy Commissioner-cum-District Election Officer Himanshu Jain said all necessary arrangements have been made for the bypoll and appealed to voters to come out in large numbers to exercise their right to vote on Thursday.
The DEO said the Election Commission has allowed use of electoral photo identity card and 12 alternative identity documents like passport, driving license, PAN card for voters to cast their votes.