Chandigarh, June 23
The state ruling Aam Adami Party that was riding high on its “overall development and pro-people policies” in the past three years on Monday retained its Ludhiana (West) Assembly seat despite seeing a low turnout of 51.33 per cent -- a drop from the 64 per cent in the 2022 Assembly polls.
However, prominent Opposition parties, the Congress, the BJP and the Shiromani Akali Dal, entered the poll fray with the slogan of "badlaav" ahead of the 2027 Assembly polls.
AAP’s Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament, Sanjeev Arora, who was leading from the first round, defeated his closest rival and two-time legislator Bharat Bhushan Ashu of the Congress by a margin of 10,637 votes.
BJP’s greenhorn Jiwan Gupta finished third.
Arora, who started his campaign in March, polled 35,179 votes, while the Congress leader Ashu got 24,542 votes and the BJP’s Gupta 20,323 votes.
The Akali Dal candidate got just 8,203 votes.
Responding to the party’s re-win, Punjab AAP in-charge, who campaigned ahead of polling, told the media, “Sanjeev Arora has won the Ludhiana (West) bypoll, and the people have shown that they are very happy with the work done by the Mann-led Punjab government.”
The bypoll was necessitated after AAP Ludhiana (West) legislator Gurpreet Bassi Gogi died of a “self-inflicted bullet injury” in January.