Campaigning for Ludhiana West Assembly bypoll ends

Campaigning for the bypoll to the Ludhiana West Assembly segment in Punjab came to an end on Tuesday evening with the major parties — AAP, Congress, BJP and Shiromani Akali Dal — making last-ditch efforts to mobilise support for their respective candidates.

Hours before the campaigning ended at 6 pm, political leaders intensified canvassing to woo voters of the urban constituency of Punjab’s industrial hub. The Ludhiana West Assembly seat fell vacant following the death of AAP MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi in January.

Polling will be held from 7 am till 6 pm on June 19 and the counting will be held on June 23. There are a total of 14 candidates in the fray for the by-election. A total of 1.74 lakh voters are eligible to exercise their franchise; 84,825 of them women and 10 of third gender.

There will be a total of 194 polling stations for the bypoll and 100 per cent live webcasting of polling stations, officials said.

The ruling AAP 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.

The Congress has placed its bet on former minister and Punjab Congress working president Bharat Bhushan Ashu (51). He had remained 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.

The BJP has field party’s senior leader Jiwan Gupta, who is a member of the core committee of Punjab BJP. He had earlier remained 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.

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, along with AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal aggressively campaigned in favour of party nominee Arora. In November last year, the AAP had won three out of four Assembly bypolls.

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. During the poll campaign, Delhi Chief Minister Gupta alleged that Bhagwant Mann is just a “mukhota” as the Punjab government is being run by the leaders of the AAP who have been “rejected” by people of the national capital.

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.

The Ludhiana West bypoll is also going to be a test of the leadership of Sukhbir Singh Badal, president of the Shiromani Akali Dal, which is looking to resurrect itself after a series of crushing electoral losses.

Badal, who was elected again as party president in April after he resigned following being declared ‘tankhaiya’ by the Akal Takht last year, led his party’s poll campaign for the party nominee Parupkar Singh Ghuman.

Three rebel leaders — Sohan Singh Thandal, Anil Joshi and Sikander Singh Maluka — recently returned to the party fold with Badal saying the party was witnessing a steady comeback of leaders who left the party for various reasons in the past.