Chandigarh, June 19 (IANS) With the state ruling Aam Aadmi Party eyeing to retain the seat, and the main Opposition Congress aiming to win back the Ludhiana (West) that it had represented six times, voting for the bypoll to Punjab’s lone Assembly seat began and will last till 6 p.m. on Thursday.

In total, 14 candidates are in the fray for the urban seat. The BJP and the Shiromani Akali Dal have also fielded candidates for the seat that fell vacant after the death of AAP first-time legislator Gurpreet Gogi Bassi in January.

The main contest largely seems between AAP’s candidate Sanjeev Arora, the party’s Rajya Sabha member and local industrialist, Congress’ former minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu, who represented the seat twice from 2012.

Ashu was defeated by his friend-turned-foe Gogi, 58, by a margin of 7,512 votes in the 2022 Assembly poll.

The BJP has fielded Jiwan Gupta, the party’s state unit core committee member, while its former ally, Akali Dal, reposed faith in Parupkar Singh Ghuman, a former president of the Ludhiana Bar Association.

Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) Sibin C. said 1,74,437 electorates, comprising 84,825 women and 10 third-gender voters, will cast votes at 194 polling booths set up at 66 locations. These include 10 model polling booths, one all-women, one eco-friendly and one booth operated by Public Works Department (PWD) staff. Additionally, 13 booths have been declared critical, where paramilitary forces have been deployed.

To facilitate senior citizens, persons with disabilities and voters with medical issues, home voting was conducted with 239 participants.

He said security checkpoints have been established at 54 locations across the constituency, and all activities are being closely monitored by the security forces.

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

By fielding the Rajya Sabha 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 Sanjeev Arora wins the bypoll. However, the party denies that Kejriwal is moving to the Rajya Sabha.

Interestingly, in October 2024, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) had carried out a raid at the residence of AAP candidate Arora as part of a money laundering probe linked to a land ‘fraud’ case.

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

In the run-up to the polling, the Bharatiya Janata Party carried out a scathing attack on the three-year rule of AAP’s governance in Punjab, accusing them of transforming the state into a “rehabilitation centre” for Kejriwal’s rejected Delhi loyalists.

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

AAP state President Aman Arora has claimed that the atmosphere during the campaign indicated that the AAP candidate Arora is heading towards a massive victory. “As the voting day approaches, the public sentiment in favour of the Aam Aadmi Party is growing stronger. Seeing this, Congress leaders and their candidate have become anxious. Unnerved, they are resorting to violent actions,” Arora told the media a day before polling.

–IANS

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