Ludhiana West prestige battle today, AAP targets 2022 repeat

After weeks of electioneering, the voting for the high-stakes Ludhiana West Assembly bypoll is set to be conducted tomorrow, with the ruling Aam Aadmi Party eyeing to retain the seat and the opposition Congress looking to regain its foothold in the urban constituency it has represented six times.

The BJP and the Shiromani Akali Dal too have pulled out all the stops as 14 candidates are in the fray for the election, necessitated after the death of AAP legislator Gurpreet Bassi Gogi in January.

The ruling AAP has fielded Rajya Sabha member Sanjeev Arora, who is a Ludhiana-based industrialist and is known for his social welfare work. The Congress has placed its bet on former minister and Punjab Congress working president Bharat Bhushan Ashu, who represented the seat in 2012 and 2017. He was defeated by his friend-turned-foe Gogi by a margin of 7,512 votes in the 2022 Assembly poll.

The BJP has shown faith in senior leader Jiwan Gupta, who is a member of the party’s state unit core committee. The Akali Dal has named Parupkar Singh Ghuman, a lawyer and the former president of the Ludhiana Bar Association.

A total of 194 polling stations have been set up, 13 of which have been declared sensitive. The sensitive booths were located in the Haibowal Kalan, Kapil Park and Jawahar Nagar areas, said District Election Officer Himanshu Jain.

As many as 1,75,469 voters are eligible to exercise their franchise, 85,371 of them women and 10 of third gender. Ninety-four teams comprising 776 personnel have been deployed for the election. The counting will be conducted on June 23.