Jalandhar West Assembly bypoll: AAP fields former BJP leader Mohinder Bhagat, BJP picks Sheetal Angural

Mohinder Bhagat is the son of Chunni Lal Bhagat, a veteran BJP leader and former three-time BJP MLA and minister who has previously represented the Jalandhar West constituency. Mohinder also contested from this seat in the 2017 elections on a BJP ticket but was defeated by the then Congress candidate Sushil Kumar Rinku, who had defected to AAP last year and had contested the Jalandhar Lok Sabha bypoll in 2023 on and AAP ticket and won with a huge margin. But before this Lok Sabha election, Rinku left the AAP to join the BJP. Last year, Chunni Lal Bhagat publicly expressed his dismay, claiming he was unaware of his son’s decision to join the AAP.

Mohinder Bhagat has long been active in the Jalandhar West constituency, initially assisting his father and later serving as a BJP leader. The AAP has struggled to find another candidate for this seat. Pawan Kumar, its Lok Sabha candidate who switched from the SAD to the AAP before the Lok Sabha election, has shown no interest in contesting the bypoll.

In the recent Lok Sabha elections, the AAP performed poorly in this Assembly segment, finishing third with a significant vote gap between the first and second runners-up. The winner, the Congress Candidate, secured 44,394 votes from here, followed by the BJP candidate (42,873) and the AAP candidate (15,629).

Political observers said the AAP needed to work very hard to win this seat if the recently concluded Lok Sabha elections are any indications. Chief Minister Bhagwan Mann has decided to stay in Jalandhar for the coming three weeks to totally focus on the bypoll. It is a matter of prestige for the ruling AAP to win this election since it will have a direct bearing on the bypolls to four other Assembly seats vacated by MLAs who contested Lok Sabha polls and won.