Ludhiana West byelection no cakewalk for any party

Even though the Ludhiana West Assembly byelection date is yet to be announced, the political scenario is already hotting up. The ruling Aam Aadmi Party, Congress and Shiromani Akali Dal have already announced their candidates. The byelection was necessitated after the death of the sitting AAP legislator Gurpreet Singh Gogi.

The AAP was the first to announce its candidate, Sanjeev ‘Sunny’ Arora, sitting Rajya Sabha MP from Punjab. His nomination from Ludhiana West is understood to have been done for creating a Rajya Sabha vacancy for AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal.

The Congress has announced the name of state working president and former minister Bharat Bhushan Ashu from here, while the SAD has announced the name of Parupkar Singh Ghuman, a former president of the Ludhiana District Bar Association. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which has high stakes in the constituency, is yet to announce its candidate.

Ludhiana West Assembly segment has a mixed demographic composition between Hindus and Sikhs with a rough ratio of 55:45, respectively. Until 2022, when the AAP won this seat in the statewide sweeping wave, Ludhiana West seat had mostly been won by the Congress and occasionally by the SAD-BJP alliance when they were together.

However, after parting ways, the BJP has emerged as a strong force in this segment, like in most of the Ludhiana urban constituencies. In 2022 Assembly elections, BJP candidate Bikramjit Singh Sidhu polled about 28,000 votes, while the winning candidate, Gogi of the AAP got slightly over 40,000 votes. Ashu of the Congress got about 32,000 votes.

In the 2024 General Election, BJP candidate Ravneet Singh Bittu, who though lost the election, got a substantial lead of about 15,000 votes from Ludhiana West. He got about 45,424 votes from here, followed by Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, who got about 30,889 votes, while the AAP candidate, Ashok Pappi Prashar, got about 22,461 votes. The SAD candidate Ranjit Singh Dhillon got 5,560 votes.

So far, it is only Sanjeev Arora and Bharat Bhushan Ashu, both of whom are campaigning intensely in the segment. Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann, along with the AAP supremo Arvind Kejriwal, have already visited the constituency twice and on both occasions spent a few days here.

Ludhiana West is promising to be a closely contested triangular battle between the AAP, Congress and BJP, with each party having high stakes, making it difficult for each one of them. At the same time, SAD members and supporters feel that the Sikh vote could turn the tables and the party has a strong vote bank in the constituency.

Ludhiana