Milking Op Sindoor in poll-bound Ludhiana: AAP candidate's hoardings hailing Army mushroom across city

Indian Express

09-05-2025

While the armed forces are battling it out at the borders amid heightened tension with neighboring Pakistan, 'Operation Sindoor' has started resonating politically in poll-bound Ludhiana West constituency of Punjab, even as the bypoll schedule is yet to be announced.
In an attempt to milk the situation, AAP candidate Sanjeev Arora's hoardings carrying his image while saluting the Indian Army's operation mushroomed across the city overnight.
The hoardings installed across Ludhiana city at prominent locations reads: 'Pakistani aatank nu moo tod jawaab.. I salute our Armed Forces for Operation Sindoor..'
Following its debacle in Delhi assembly elections, the Ludhiana West bye-election has turned into a prestige battle for the AAP, currently in power only in Punjab. Arora, also the Rajya Sabha MP, is going all out to campaign in Ludhiana. AAP bigwigs, including national convenor Arvind Kejriwal and Manish Sisodia, are already campaigning for Arora and visiting Punjab.
While BJP is yet to announce the candidate for the bypoll, Congress candidate and former minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu has uploaded a poster on his Facebook campaigning page. The poster with his photo reads: 'Operation Sindoor… Salute to Indian Army.'
Similar hoardings have also been put by SAD across the city with photos of party president Sukhbir Singh Badal and party's general secretary Maheshinder Singh Grewal, sans image of party's bypoll candidate Parupkar Singh Ghumman. The hoardings put up by SAD reads: 'Shiromani Akali Dal salutes our brave Armed Forces for executing Operation Sindoor with precision and restraint. We stand with the Govt of India for its decisive action against terrorism.'
Speaking to The Indian Express, Arora said that he got the hoardings installed hailing Operation Sindoor as a 'tribute to the Army.' 'I did not get those hoardings made for any election campaign or to get votes but only as a tribute to the Army and to show that we are standing with the nation in this tough time. In fact, I also did not buy any new space for these hoardings but got the old ones replaced,' said Arora.
However, SAD candidate Parupkar Singh Ghumman said that Arora was resorting to the 'lowest level to get votes' and 'did not even spare even the Indian Army that has nothing to do with politics.'
'Being a n candidate and putting your own photos bigger than those of the Army on the hoardings and dotting entire city with them is the lowest. This shows how desperate AAP is to win this seat because they know that people are no more with them. AAP is politicising the Army for its own publicity in Ludhiana,' Ghumman said, adding, 'My own family has so many Army veterans that we know what it means to go at the border and fight for the country. He is simply try to take political mileage from an Army operation.'
'Also, a candidate cannot spend more than Rs 1.60 lakh on campaigning until the election is not announced but since he belongs to the ruling party, he is being given a free hand by the administration,' the SAD candidate added.
Asked why his own party has also installed Op Sindoor hoardings in the city, Ghumman said, 'I am the SAD candidate for the election but my image is nowhere on those hoardings. Those have been installed by Grewal in his personal capacity. My stand would have been the same had my party put up such hoardings for election campaigning.'
Ashu added, 'Everyone has his own way to show their support for the Army but yes, the Army Operation should not be politicised.'
Rajnish Dhiman, BJP Ludhiana president said that putting up hoardings mentioning Army Operation in a poll-bound constituency was 'a shallow move by the AAP.'
'Our defence minister Rajnath Singh has already announced that the Operation Sindoor is not over yet. Our forces are still battling it out at the borders. Our party is busy in making list of volunteers who would help people in case this military conflict with Pakistan escalates. In such times, putting hoardings with own image and that of the Army for political mileage is unethical.'
Divya Goyal is a Principal Correspondent with The Indian Express, based in Punjab.
Her interest lies in exploring both news and feature stories, with an effort to reflect human interest at the heart of each piece. She writes on gender issues, education, politics, Sikh diaspora, heritage, the Partition among other subjects. She has also extensively covered issues of minority communities in Pakistan and Afghanistan. She also explores the legacy of India's partition and distinct stories from both West and East Punjab.
She is a gold medalist from the Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC), Delhi, the most revered government institute for media studies in India, from where she pursued English Journalism (Print). Her research work on 'Role of micro-blogging platform Twitter in content generation in newspapers' had won accolades at IIMC.
She had started her career in print journalism with Hindustan Times before switching to The Indian Express in 2012.
Her investigative report in 2019 on gender disparity while treating women drug addicts in Punjab won her the Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitivity in 2020. She won another Laadli for her ground report on the struggle of two girls who ride a boat to reach their school in the border village of Punjab.
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