AAP holds highest stakes in Ludhiana byelection

Even as there is no clarity on the date of polling for the Ludhiana (West) Assembly by-election, but this has not deterred the political parties from starting their campaigning. Of the four mainstream political parties, only the Bharatiya Janata Party has not announced its candidate so far. The party is yet to begin its official “campaigning” with the candidate. The byelection was necessitated by the untimely death of the AAP MLA from here, Gurpreet Singh Gogi.

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The ruling Aam Aadmi Party was the first to announce its candidate Sanjeev Arora. He is the sitting Rajya Sabha MP and belongs to Ludhiana. Although not a traditional politician, his tryst with politics started when he became AAP’s Rajya Sabha member in 2022. Arora, a successful businessman, immersed himself into politics and during the last three years had remained focussed on Ludhiana. He claims to have expedited the completion of various projects which were started by the previous regimes like the Ferozepur elevated road project and getting the Halwara airport operationalised. But the flights have still not started.

Arora was the first to begin his campaign with Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, along with the AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal, who has visited the city twice for his campaigning. The extra interest the AAP is taking in Ludhiana (West) byelection is attributed to the party’s plan to get Arora’s RS seat vacated for Kejriwal.

Arora told The Tribune that he was termed as industrialists’ man. He said that till date he had attended 50 booth-level meetings and over 100 social gatherings and the way the masses were giving their love and affection, his connection with the masses had strengthened. Arora said that he was fully satisfied with the way the campaign was getting the response.

The Congress had also announced its candidate Bharat Bhushan Ashu from here. Ashu is the working president of the Punjab Congress and a former minister. He has represented the constituency twice in 2012 and 2017. He had lost to Gogi in 2022.

Talking to The Tribune, Ashu said that the campaign was going strong and what they had lost in the last three years, they would get back because of the achievements and works done during the regime of Congress and failure of the present government in the last three years. Ashu said that people were fed up with AAP government’s failures. The political vendetta against the Congress leaders and fake FIRs registered against them were open for all to see the highhandedness of the ruling party, he said.

The SAD has fielded Parupkar Singh Ghuman, a prominent city lawyer and a former president of the District Bar Association, Ludhiana. The SAD does not have much stake in this segment, particularly after having parted ways with the BJP, which has a significant presence here. In 2022, the BJP got about 28,000 votes from here, while in the 2024 General Election, the BJP got the highest of 45,424 votes from this segment. Congress got 30,889, while the AAP got 22,461 and SAD got 5,560.

Since the AAP has the highest stake involved in this byelection, as it will be first after its Delhi defeat, the party does not seem to be taking any chances here. Otherwise, with 94 seats already in a house of 117, the victory otherwise would not make any difference to its numerical strength in the House.

All three parties are keenly awaiting the announcement of the BJP candidate. Much will depend on the BJP candidate, whose performance can alter the balance. Besides, the BJP is among the favourites, given its performance from this segment in the parliamentary elections.

Anil Sarin, senior BJP leader from Ludhiana, said that the party might announce the candidate any time and the party was already geared up for campaigning.