Punjab: Counting for Ludhiana West assembly bypoll begins

Ludhiana | The counting of votes for the Ludhiana West assembly bypoll in Punjab began at 8 am here on Monday.

The polling for bypoll, necessitated following the death of AAP MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi in January, took place on June 19.

A voter turnout of 51.33 per cent was registered, a sharp drop from the 64 per cent voting registered in the 2022 Assembly polls.

There were 14 candidates in the fray for the bypoll.

A foolproof security arrangement has been put in place at the Khalsa College for Women which will serve as the counting centre, an official said.

The counting will have 14 rounds.

The main contesting political outfits in the bypoll were the Aam Aadmi Party, the Congress, the BJP and the Shiromani Akali Dal.

The Aam Aadmi Party fielded Sanjeev Arora (61), a Rajya Sabha member and a Ludhiana-based industrialist, who is also known for his social welfare work, for the bypoll. On the other hand, the opposition Congress placed its bet on former minister and Punjab Congress working president Bharat Bhushan Ashu (51).

The BJP fielded senior leader Jiwan Gupta, a member of the core committee of the party's Punjab unit, while the SAD named Parupkar Singh Ghuman, a lawyer and the former president of Ludhiana Bar Association, as its candidate.