Punjab bypoll: AAP's Mohinder Bhagat defeats BJP's Sheetal Angural in Jalandhar West assembly seat

Chandigarh, Jul 13 (PTI) The AAP on Saturday retained the Jalandhar West assembly seat with its candidate Mohinder Bhagat defeating BJP's Sheetal Angural by 37,325 votes in the bypoll, in a boost for Punjab's ruling party following its drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls.

The bypoll to this reserve Assembly segment was necessitated following the resignation of Angural as AAP legislator. He joined the BJP in March.

Bhagat polled 55,246 votes while Angural secured 17,921 votes, according to officials. Congress nominee Surinder Kaur, who was in the third position, got 16,757 votes.

With this victory, the AAP will now have 91 MLAs in the 117-member Punjab assembly. The Congress has 15 MLAs, SAD three, BJP two, BSP one and one Independent.

Celebrations broke out at the residence of Bhagat in Jalandhar with his family members and supporters ecstatic over the victory. AAP workers burst firecrackers, distributed sweets and danced to the beats of drums. The party also took out a procession in Jalandhar.

Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann said the victory in the Jalandhar West assembly bypoll by a big margin shows that people of the state are "very happy" with the AAP government's works.

On his victory, Bhagat (66) said voters gave their mandate in favour of the AAP because of the Bhagwant Mann-led dispensation's works. He thanked the AAP leadership, including CM Mann, as well as ministers, MLAs and party workers for the victory.

Lauding Mann, he said, "People love and respect him a lot. While voting, people kept in mind the welfare works carried out by the chief minister." Bhagat, the son of former minister and ex-BJP MLA Bhagat Chunni Lal, joined the AAP after quitting the saffron party last year. He had unsuccessfully contested the Jalandhar West Assembly seat in the 2017 and 2022 assembly elections as a BJP nominee.

In the bypoll, Bhagat secured 58.39 per cent of the 94,609 votes polled while Angural and Kaur got 18.94 per cent and 17.71 per cent votes respectively, according to election commission data. As many as 687 voters opted for None of the Above (NOTA).

SAD candidate Surjit Kaur, who was disowned by her party, was in the fourth spot with 1,242 votes and BSP nominee Binder Kumar was in the fifth position with 734 votes. Fifteen candidates were in the fray in the bypoll.

The SAD, BSP and SAD (Amritsar) nominees and nine Independent candidates lost their security deposits in the bypoll.

Polling took place on Wednesday and a voter turnout of 54.98 per cent was recorded. It was a sharp drop from the 67 per cent turnout in the assembly segment in the 2022 state elections.

The bypoll was being seen as a litmus test for the Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann following the AAP's drubbing in the Lok Sabha polls in which it could win just three of the state's 13 parliamentary constituencies.

Besides leading the poll campaign, Mann had even rented a house in Jalandhar and moved there along with his family. He had said that he would keep the house even after the bypoll and meet people of the Doaba and Majha regions for two days a week to get their work done.

The chief minister had also hinted at making Bhagat a minister in his Cabinet if he won the bypoll. Mann's wife Gurpreet Kaur had also canvassed for the AAP nominee.

Reacting to the party's victory, Punjab Finance Minister Harpal Singh Cheema said people have put their stamp of approval on the policies of the Bhagwant Mann government. "It indicates that people were happy with the AAP government," he said.

The bypoll result has sent a signal to opposition parties -- the Congress and the BJP -- that people still stand by the AAP strongly, he asserted.

Punjab BJP chief Sunil Jakhar, while accepting the mandate, expressed hope that the AAP government would now remember its duty to carry out the works promised during the campaign at a faster pace.

"We expect the state government will start development works in the state, put an end to people's hardships, take action against rampant corruption and improve the law-and-order situation," Jakhar wrote on Facebook.

In the 2024 general elections, the AAP secured just 15,629 votes from the Jalandhar West assembly segment, which was part of the Jalandhar Parliamentary constituency. PTI CHS VSD NSD NSD