While the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the Congress, and the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) have already announced their respective candidates for the Ludhiana West Assembly bypoll scheduled to be held on June 19, the BJP is yet to do the same. However, BJP sources Sunday said the party is likely to finalise its candidate within the next couple of days. A crucial meeting is scheduled for Sunday evening, and sources indicated that the candidate may even be announced by Sunday night, provided consensus is reached among the senior leadership. “Over 25 aspirants have shown interest in contesting from Ludhiana West. The enthusiasm is high, even though it’s a bypoll. People are disillusioned with the AAP, and there is a strong sentiment to vote them out. We are hopeful that the candidate will be announced soon,” said Anil Sarin, General Secretary, BJP Punjab unit, while speaking to The Indian Express. The sources said that Bikram Singh Sidhu is one of the leading aspirants. He contested from the BJP in the 2022 Punjab Assembly elections from the same constituency and finished third, securing 28,107 votes. Other names being discussed include Anil Sarin himself, who hails from Ludhiana, and Rashi Aggarwal, a former Congress councillor who recently joined the BJP. Additionally, sources revealed that the party is also considering fielding an industrialist as a surprise candidate. On the other hand, the SAD has fielded a new face – Parupkar Singh Ghuman, a senior advocate and former president of the District Bar Association, Ludhiana. The Congress has nominated Bharat Bhushan Ashu, a former cabinet minister, while the AAP announced Rajya Sabha MP Sanjeev Arora as its candidate back in March. Arora has already been actively campaigning in the constituency. Congress and SAD candidates have also launched their campaigns, whereas the BJP is yet to formally begin ground-level outreach in the absence of a declared candidate. In the 2022 Vidhan Sabha elections, SAD’s Maheshinder Singh Grewal had polled only 10,072 votes, while AAP’s Gurpreet Singh Gogi defeated Ashu by a margin of 7,512 votes. The bypoll has been necessitated due to the demise of the sitting AAP MLA Gurpreet Singh Gogi in January 2025.
