Punjab: AAP retains Ludhiana West seat, Sanjeev Arora defeats Cong's Ashu in bypoll

Ludhiana: Punjab's ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Monday retained the Ludhiana West assembly seat with its candidate Sanjeev Arora registering a victory in a fierce electoral fight against his nearest rival and Congress candidate Bharat Bhushan Ashu by a margin of 10,637 votes.

Arora (61) secured 35,179 votes while Ashu got 24,542 votes, according to Election Commission data.

BJP's Jiwan Gupta polled 20,323 votes while Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) nominee Parupkar Singh Ghuman received 8,203 votes.

The bypoll was necessitated following the death of AAP MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi in January.

The counting of votes for the June 19 bypoll began at 8 am at a centre set up at Khalsa College for Women here.

Following AAP's victory, celebrations broke out at the residence of Arora and the party office in Ludhiana. His family members and supporters were ecstatic over the victory in the assembly constituency.

AAP leaders and cabinet ministers distributed sweets and danced to the beats of 'dhol' over the victory of Arora.

With AAP retaining the seat, its strength in the 117-member Assembly has remained unchanged.

AAP has 94 MLAs in the House while the Congress has 16 MLAs, SAD has three, BJP two and the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) one while one seat is held by an Independent.

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, while congratulating the people for the party's victory, said this win with a huge lead is a clear indication that the people of the state are "extremely happy" with the government's work.

"We are working day and night with complete honesty and without any discrimination for the progress and prosperity of Punjab," he said.

"We will fulfil every promise made to Punjabis during the byelection on a priority basis. Congratulations to Sanjeev Arora ji. Also, many congratulations to the entire leadership and volunteer team who worked tirelessly day and night for this victory," said Mann in a post on X.

A victory march, led by Punjab AAP president Aman Arora, was taken out by the party workers in Ludhiana.

Congress leader Rana Gurjit Singh, while reacting to the bypoll outcome, said the party accepted the people's verdict.

From the beginning of counting, AAP candidate Arora took the lead.

Though the AAP nominee maintained the overall lead, Congress party's Ashu led the fourth, fifth and sixth rounds of counting and during which, the AAP candidate's margin dropped.

After the first three rounds of counting, Arora was leading with a margin of 3,060 votes, which dipped to 2,286 votes after the sixth round.

However, Arora's margin again started going up from the seventh round onwards.

Arora secured 39.01 per cent of the total 90,160 votes polled for the bypoll while Ashu got 27.22 per cent and Gupta 22.54 per cent votes, according to the ECI data.

SAD nominee Ghuman got just 9.1 per cent of the total votes polled.

According to the results, 793 voters opted for None of the Above (NOTA).

Reacting to his victory, AAP's Arora thanked the voters of the Ludhiana West assembly seat. He also thanked AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal and Punjab Chief Minister Mann for his win in the bypoll.

AAP had fielded Arora (61), who is a Rajya Sabha member and a Ludhiana-based industrialist.

Congress nominee Ashu congratulated Arora for his victory and assured his full support for the development of Ludhiana.

Ashu said he takes complete responsibility for his defeat in the bypoll and said he had the full support of the party in the byelection.

Ashu had lost to AAP's Gogi by a margin of 7,512 votes in the 2022 assembly polls. Ashu had been MLA twice from this seat in 2012 and 2017.

There were 14 candidates in the fray.

A voter turnout of 51.33 per cent was recorded in the bypoll, a sharp drop from the 64 per cent voting registered in the 2022 state polls. There were a total of 1.75 lakh eligible voters for the bypoll.

The bypoll was seen as a litmus test for the Bhagwant Mann-led AAP government and the ruling party's national leadership which aggressively campaigned to retain this seat.

The victory was important for Kejriwal-led AAP, which faced a debacle in the Delhi assembly elections held earlier this year.

The win will boost the morale of the party cadre as the bypoll was seen as an electoral contest that would set the tone for the 2027 state assembly polls.