With just two days to go before the Ludhiana West Assembly bypoll on June 19, all eyes are on how the BJP factor will play out in this urban constituency of Punjab, where voters largely come from elite, educated, and financially sound backgrounds.
The primary contest is expected to be between Congress’s Bharat Bhushan Ashu, a former minister and two-term MLA, and the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)’s Sanjeev Arora, an industrialist and member of the Rajya Sabha. However, attention is focused on how the votes cast for BJP candidate Jiwan Gupta will impact both the Congress and the AAP.
Since its establishment in 1977, the Ludhiana West assembly constituency has never been won by the BJP, even in independent contests or in alliances with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD). Out of the ten elections held in this period, the Congress won six times, the BJP’s former ally SAD claimed two victories, and the erstwhile Janata Party and AAP won once each.
After the SAD-BJP alliance in Punjab ended over the three farm laws in 2020, the BJP contested the 2022 Assembly elections independently from Ludhiana West, with its candidate, Bikram Singh Sidhu, coming third with 23.95 per cent of the votes, and the AAP’s Gurpreet Gogi winning.
However, in this urban seat, dominated by the upmarket Hindu business community, industrialists and traders, along with scientists/professors from Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), the BJP has made significant gains in the past year or so.
In the 2024 Lok Sabha elections, former Congress Ludhiana MP Ravneet Singh Bittu shifted to the BJP and contested on the party’s ticket. Although he lost the election to the Congress’s Amrinder Singh Raja Warring, the BJP led from the Ludhiana West segment, polling 45,000 votes, which was 15,000 more than the Congress received.
The ruling AAP was pushed to third and polled just around 22,000 votes from Ludhiana West. The BJP claimed a lead in 66 of the 95 urban wards of Ludhiana in the Lok Sabha polls. Overall, AAP candidate Ashok Parshar Pappi finished a distant third with the ruling party’s vote bank dipping below that of the BJP.
Pappi blamed the defeat on the BJP’s “Ram Mandir” pitch. AAP had failed to lead from any of the six urban Assembly segments of Ludhiana, while five went to the BJP and one to the Congress. Despite the loss, PM Narendra Modi made Bittu the Union Minister of State for Railways and Food Processing, which he says “was due to Modi’s love for Punjab”.
Then, in the Ludhiana Municipal Corporation elections, the ruling AAP suffered a major setback, as it failed to reach the majority mark to appoint its mayor. Of the 95 urban wards, the AAP won 41 (seven short of a majority), the Congress 30, the BJP 19, and the SAD 2.
For the first-ever bypoll in Ludhiana West, necessitated by the passing of AAP MLA Gurpreet Gogi, the SAD is the only party that has fielded a Sikh face: advocate Parupkar Singh Ghumman, known for fighting legal battles for underprivileged people pro bono.
Political experts believe that while a victory for the BJP in the Ludhiana West bypoll may seem unlikely, the party is expected to impact the vote share of both the Congress and AAP. It remains to be seen which party will be affected more significantly.
“The BJP candidate, Jiwan Gupta, started late. His nomination was announced just a day ahead of the last day of nominations, but even then, their campaign has blossomed over the past week. Several leaders in the BJP, including state president Sunil Jakhar, Haryana CM Nayab Singh Saini, Delhi CM Rekha Gupta, and Union ministers Hardeep Puri and Anurag Thakur, came to campaign for him. The BJP might not be winning the seat, but they are going to severely dent our and the AAP’s vote bank,” said a senior Congress leader.
The AAP was the first to announce Arora as a candidate in February itself, followed by the Congress’s Ashu. The AAP was also the first to start campaigning with its national convener Kejriwal and Punjab CM Mann hitting the ground in Ludhiana in March itself.
A local resident said that “financially well-to-do” people of Ludhiana city don’t have much to do with CM Mann’s populist schemes, such as free power and atta dal; rather, they are highly upset over erratic power supply and long power cuts that the city has been facing this summer.
“This is a major worry for the AAP. It has been over a month now that the CM is regularly staying at a five-star facility in Ludhiana, and the entire city faces massive traffic jams due to his security cover. Inside houses, there is no power, and outside, there are major traffic snarls. Unlike previous CMs, he never stays in government guest houses. But this party had promised to end VVIP culture,” said the resident.
While the Ram Mandir was a key issue in the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, this time it could be Operation Sindoor, which could hurt the AAP in Ludhiana, said another local resident. “CM Mann mocking ‘Sindoor’ has not gone down well with the urban Hindu women in Ludhiana. The anti-incumbency against the AAP can favour both the BJP and the Congress. And even the SAD can improve this time,” said the resident.
However, what remains in the AAP’s favour is the advantage of being the ruling party, the power of administrative machinery, and the announcement by Kejriwal that if Arora is elected, he will be elevated as a Cabinet minister. Kejriwal has even announced that if any other party’s MLA is elected, it “will be difficult for him to get development works done in the constituency” as he “won’t have any power or money sans AAP government’s support”.
Since being declared a candidate, Arora has been portrayed as the face of AAP Ludhiana, leading inaugurations and laying the foundation stone for major projects. The AAP has also built its campaign around Congress candidate Ashu’s behavioural traits —gussa (anger) and ahankaar (arrogance), a charge that Ashu has denied.
But what the Opposition has accused the AAP of is “plotting Kejriwal’s backdoor entry into Rajya Sabha” by making Arora contest from Ludhiana. “He is not campaigning for Arora, but his own entry into the Rajya Sabha. Arora is merely a pawn,” said a leaver, asking people not to vote for Kejriwal, “who has been rejected by the people of Delhi”.
However, both the Congress and the BJP have already announced that the bypoll would be a “trailer” for 2027 Punjab Assembly polls, as they claim that “people are waiting to throw out the AAP” and “winds of change will blow from Ludhiana”.
While the AAP’s campaign so far has been led by its well-known faces, such as Kejriwal, Mann, Manish Sisodia, Rajya Sabha MP Harbhajan Singh, former Delhi CM Atishi, and Mann’s wife, Dr Gurpreet Kaur, among others, the Congress is relying mostly on its local leadership.
“While till now, everyone is assuming numbers 1 and 2 to be between the Congress and the AAP, it will not be a surprise if the BJP ends up second,” said a local BJP leader.
In 1980, when the SAD and the BJP were not allies, the BJP’s Vishwa Nath had stood third with 21.49 per cent votes. In 1985, the BJP’s Inderjit Singh again stood third with 8.86 per cent of the votes, and in 1992, the saffron party’s Kailash Sharma finished second with 31.82 per cent of the votes.
In 1997, after the SAD-BJP alliance was formed, the SAD’s Maheshinder Singh Grewal won the seat. However, in 2002, the SAD’s Avtar Singh Makkar lost to the Congress. In 2007, the SAD’s Harish Rai Dhanda won. In 2012, the Congress’s Ashu won while the BJP’s Prof Rajinder Bhandari finished second with 30.17 per cent votes.
In 2017, Ashu won for a second consecutive time, but with the AAP entering Punjab’s political landscape, the BJP was pushed to third, with Kamal Chatly finishing third with just 18 per cent of votes. In 2022, after the SAD-BJP alliance ended, the BJP’s Bikram Sidhu came third while the AAP won.
