New Delhi: Voting for by-elections to five Assembly seats across Punjab, West Bengal, Gujarat, and Kerala is underway. The polling began at 7 am and will continue till 6 pm. The seats where polling is underway are Kaliganj in West Bengal, Nilambur in Kerala, Ludhiana West in Punjab, and Kadi and Visavadar in Gujarat.
Polling commenced amidst tight security arrangements, including the deployment of central security forces and police, along with live monitoring of the by-election process through an extensive webcasting system. The counting of votes will be held on June 23.
Ludhiana West bypoll
The Ludhiana West Assembly seat fell vacant after the passing of AAP MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi in January. The by-election is expected to see a multi-cornered contest, with key political players — the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), Congress, BJP, and Shiromani Akali Dal, competing fiercely for dominance in this urban constituency.
There are a total of 14 candidates in the fray and 1,75,469 voters are eligible to exercise their franchise – 85,371 of them women and 10 belonging to the third gender. A total of 194 polling stations are there for the bypoll with 100 per cent live webcasting of polling stations, officials said.
The ruling AAP has fielded Rajya Sabha member Sanjeev Arora for the bypoll. Arora (61) is a Ludhiana-based industrialist and is also known for his social welfare work.
The Congress has placed its bet on former minister and Punjab Congress working president Bharat Bhushan Ashu (51). Ashu had been MLA twice from this seat in 2012 and 2017. He was defeated by Gogi by a margin of 7,512 votes in the 2022 Assembly polls.
The BJP has fielded the party’s senior leader Jiwan Gupta. He is a member of the core committee of the Punjab BJP. He had earlier remained the party’s state general secretary. SAD named Parupkar Singh Ghuman as its candidate for the bypoll. Ghuman is a lawyer and the former president of Ludhiana Bar Association.
