Chandigarh, May 25 (IANS) The political scene in Punjab’s industrial city heated up on Sunday after the Election Commission of India (ECI) fixed June 19 as the polling day for the Ludhiana West Assembly byelection that fell vacant with the demise of Gurpreet Gogi Bassi.

Bassi, 58, died after sustaining a gunshot wound to his head at his house in January.

The counting will be held on June 23 simultaneously with four other Assembly seats — two in Gujarat and one each in Kerala and West Bengal.

The state Aam Aadmi Party in February announced Rajya Sabha MP Sanjeev Arora as its candidate for the Ludhiana (West) Assembly byelection, while the main Opposition Congress has fielded former Minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu, who is being accused in a multi-crore foodgrain transportation and labour cartage tender scam. The Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) has nominated Parupkar Singh Ghuman for the bypoll. The BJP is yet to name its candidate.

By fielding the sitting MP, speculations in political circles are rife that AAP convener Arvind Kejriwal, who’s active in the state politics after facing humiliating defeat not only of his party but his bastion in Delhi Assembly elections, is going to the Rajya Sabha in his place in case Arora wins the bypoll.

However, the party has so far denied that Kejriwal is moving to the Rajya Sabha.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) in October 2024 carried out a raid at the residence of AAP candidate Arora in Ludhiana as part of a money laundering probe linked to a land ‘fraud’ case. The raid was in connection with a chunk of land that was allotted to Ritesh Properties and Industries Limited, one of the companies owned by Arora, by the state government for an industrial project, but it was used for a residential project.

In the 2022 Assembly elections, AAP’s legislator Gogi, who joined the party in the run-up to the polls, defeated two-time legislator Bharat Bhushan Ashu in Ludhiana (West), a traditional Congress stronghold urban seat.

The BJP, which is expanding its footprints in the state’s Hindu-dominated urban constituencies, is eyeing to field a strong and credible local face with grassroots connect to give a tough contest both to the state ruling AAP and the Congress.

The Bharatiya Janata Party has already launched a scathing attack on the three-year rule of AAP’s governance in Punjab, accusing it of transforming the state into a “rehabilitation centre” for Kejriwal’s rejected Delhi loyalists.

The BJP leaders like Tarun Chugh and Manjinder Singh Sirsa claim that AAP is systematically placing its favoured individuals in key administrative positions, effectively undermining Punjab’s autonomy. They argue that Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann has been reduced to a “rubber stamp” while Kejriwal operates as a remote puppet master.

The allegations suggest a broader critique of AAP’s political strategy of transplanting its Delhi network into Punjab’s political ecosystem.

Reacting to the appointment of three Delhi-based lawyers — Mohammad Irshad, Prashant Manchanda, and R.V. Sinha — as Additional Advocate Generals in Punjab, Chugh last week questioned whether Punjab lacked its own legal talent or whether it had now become a “shelter home” for Kejriwal’s “blue-eyed boys”.

–IANS

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