Bypolls: AAP retains seats in Gujarat and Punjab, calls it ‘semi-final’ to 2027 state polls

Both the Assembly seats that the AAP won had also gone to the party in the 2022 state polls. While the Ludhiana West bypoll was necessitated by the death of sitting AAP MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi, the Visavadar seat in Gujarat fell vacant after the sitting AAP MLA defected to the BJP.

Another bypoll with political repercussions was Nilambur in Kerala, where the ruling Left Democratic Front (LDF) was delivered a shock by the Congress. The Assembly elections in Kerala are just months away, and both the LDF and Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) had built up the Nilambur contest as a pointer to the 2026 elections.

The fifth bypoll, in West Bengal’s Kaliganj, held no surprises, but the ruling Trinamool Congress had the comfort of not only retaining the seat but also increasing its vote share.

For the AAP, the Gujarat win clears the way for the Assembly debut of its senior leader Gopal Italia, who lost in the 2022 polls. He won the Visavadar bypoll by a respectable margin of 17,554 votes, with the Congress virtually wiped out, getting just about 5,000 votes.

With the Congress also losing vote share in the bypoll for the Kadi SC-reserved seat in Gujarat, with the BJP’s Rajendra Chavda retaining the party’s bastion by a margin of 39,452 votes, Gujarat PCC chief Shaktisinh Gohil announced his resignation.

The Kadi seat had fallen vacant following the death of BJP MLA Karsan Solanki.

The AAP will also cherish its Ludhiana West win, having poured all its energy — and, as per the Opposition, resources — into retaining the seat after the Delhi Assembly poll loss led to questions about its future. While the AAP’s Sanjeev Arora, a sitting Rajya Sabha MP, won by 10,637 votes, the Congress’s Bharat Bhushan Ashu was second, with the infighting between the party’s leaders hobbling its campaign. Later in the day, Ashu quit as the Punjab Congress working president.

The BJP finished third, besting the Shiromani Akali Dal and adding to its former ally’s woes.

Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, whose government has been under attack on various fronts, said the result showed the people of the state were “extremely happy” with AAP’s work.

The Nilambur seat was won by Congress candidate Aryadan Shoukath, the son of the late Congress stalwart Aryadan Muhammed, by 11,077 votes. The LDF had hoped to send a message ahead of the elections by winning the seat, and fielded its state Secretariat member M Swaraj.

Instead, Nilambur has now become the fourth by-election defeat for the LDF under its government.

The Nilambur constituency falls within the Wayanad Lok Sabha seat represented by Congress’s Priyanka Gandhi. Shoukath got 44.17% vote share, while Swaraj got 37.88%. In the 2021 elections, LDF had polled 46.9% of votes and UDF 45.34%.

In the 2021 Assembly elections, Independent candidate P Anvar had won Nilambur, backed by the Left. After failing to get the Congress ticket this time, he entered the Nilambur bypoll as a Trinamool Congress nominee. The wide gap between the winner and the nearest rival in the bypoll is mainly attributed to Anvar bagging 11.23% of the votes.

Shoukath called his victory “a major win against the LDF government”.

In Bengal, the TMC’s Alifa Ahmed beat BJP’s Ashish Ghosh by 50,000 votes. This is better than the 2021 winning margin of her father Nasiruddin Ahmed, whose demise in February this year necessitated the byelection.