After two months of high-pitched campaigning, Ludhiana West bypoll sees 51.33% turnout, lowest since 2007

This is the lowest turnout for an assembly bypoll in Ludhiana West in the past five elections since 2007 including the Thursday’s bypoll.

Candidates expressed hot weather and summer vacations in schools as probable reasons for the low turnout.

A total of 1.74 lakh voters were registered in the constituency.

In 2007 Punjab assembly elections, 58.92% voters had come out to vote in this segment.

The highest turnout was witnessed in 2012 when 69.66% voters had exercised their franchise.

This, however, was the first ever bypoll in the constituency since it came into existence in 1977, necessitated after the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi passed away in January this year.

Most recently in 2022 assembly polls when Gogi had won, 64.29% turnout was witnessed.

Ludhiana district election officer Himanshu Jain said that the polling was largely peaceful.

However, even as national-level leaders from the parties such as the BJP and ruling AAP came down to Ludhiana for campaigning, the turnout has been extremely low.

For AAP, the national convenor Arvind Kejriwal to Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann, and senior BJP leadership including union ministers Anurag Thakur, Hardeep Singh Puri, Haryana CM Nayab Singh Saini and Delhi CM Rekha Gupta— the politicos from Delhi had made a beeline in Ludhiana to woo the voters, with AAP starting as early as March.

However, in the last four days of campaigning, Kejriwal and Mann were missing on the ground and Manish Sisodia had led the campaign.

Politically, the bypoll is a litmus test for the ruling AAP, ahead of 2027 Punjab assembly elections and months after it lost its bastion Delhi to BJP.

AAP fielded Rajya Sabha member cum industrialist Sanjeev Arora in the bypoll, amid massive backlash from the Opposition that Arora’s candidature was a way to facilitate Kejriwal’s entry into the Rajya Sabha.

The ruling AAP also faced the allegations of luring voters by distributing cash, ration and freebies with Opposition parties filing complaints with the Election Commission (EC).

The Opposition parties including the BJP and Congress have already announced that the bypoll results would be “beginning of AAP’s end in Punjab” and “winds of change for 2027 will blow from Ludhiana”.

Congress candidate Bharat Bhushan Ashu, a former minister, is eyeing a return after he was defeated by Gogi in 2022, while BJP’s Jiwan Gupta is hoping to spring a surprise after the party had secured the highest votes from West in 2024 Lok Sabha elections, pushing AAP to distant third.

While the polling was largely peaceful, candidates alleged some incidents of bogus voting and skirmishes.

BJP candidate Jiwan Gupta alleged that AAP resorted to bogus voting in Jawaddi area in the last one of polling.

“Those who have remained in power or are currently in power should ask for votes on the basis of their performance but it is sad that AAP resorted to unethical practices such as distributing cash, liquor and ration to voters. They used money and muscle power. They also tried to poll bogus votes in Jawaddi area in the last one hour of polling but we tried to handle the situation by sending our workers to keep an eye,” said Gupta.

Tension also prevailed for few hours at Malwa Khalsa Senior Secondary School, Model Gram, where Mamta Ashu, wife of Congress candidate, alleged that AAP candidate Arora entered the polling booth with “outsiders who were trying to influence the voters.”

However, Arora denied and said: “I don’t know how to do dhakkeshahi (hooliganism). I have no control over who enters the booths, it is the work of security personnel. I greeted Mamta Ashu with folded hands but she was unresponsive. I was hoping that poll percentage would cross 60 percent.”

SAD candidate Parupkar Singh Ghumman said that hot weather and “anti-incumbency” against AAP government was the reason behind low voter turnout. “Hot weather and summer vacations for children is one reason.

The other is there is strong anti-incumbency against the AAP government and people did not come out to vote as they did not want to vote in favour of the government,” he said.

Ashu also said that hot weather was one of the reasons for low turnout.

However, social activists Col (retd) Jasjit Singh Gill and Brij Bhushan Goyal in a statement said that both the administration and politicians were responsible for “poor voter turnout.”

“The district election machinery failed in its supreme duty to motivate the voters to come out and vote through awareness campaigns. This is not a healthy trend for democracy. The colossal expenditure in poll campaigns by candidates as well as official/police paraphernalia deployed for so many days could not ensure complete participation of voters. This shows people lost in the politicians who only keep making promises but issues continue to linger for years,” they said in a statement.

Ludhiana West bypoll voter turnout and winner since 1977.
(Express File Photo)

Since 1977 when Ludhiana West constituency came into existence, it has witnessed ten assembly contests.

The lowest turnout was witnessed in 1992, at 27.36%, when the Punjab assembly elections were held at the peak of dark militancy days.

Congress’s Harnam Dass Johar had won in 1992. In 2002, the voting turnout was 43.77% and again Johar had won.

In 2012 and 2017, the turnout was 69.66% and 69.25% respectively, and both times Congress’s Bharat Bhushan Ashu had won.

In 2024 Lok Sabha polls, when BJP polled highest votes, the turnout from the West segment was 63 per cent.