BJP fails to replicate Lok Sabha success in Ludhiana West bypoll

Expecting to translate the performance into a victory in the bypoll, the party fielded heavy weights like Union ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and Anurag Thakur, Delhi CM Rekha Gupta, Haryana CM Nayab Saini and Punjab BJP head Sunil Jakhar in the campaign

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which secured over 45,000 votes from the Ludhiana West segment in the 2024 Lok Sabha Election, couldn’t even hold on to half the votes in the byelection, the results for which were declared on Monday.

The party’s vote share fell by more than 55% as compared to the 2024 general election. (Gurpreet Singh/HT)

The party’s candidate Ravneet Bittu scored an impressive 45,424 votes in the Lok Sabha election last June. Congress candidate Amarinder Singh Raja Warring, who had won the Lok Sabha seat, was a distant second in the segment with 30,889 votes.

Expecting to translate the performance into a victory in the bypoll, the party fielded heavy weights like Union ministers Hardeep Singh Puri and Anurag Thakur, Delhi CM Rekha Gupta, Haryana CM Nayab Saini and Punjab BJP head Sunil Jakhar in the campaign. Former Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani, who died in the Air India crash in Ahmedabad on June 12, had camped in Ludhiana and planned the campaign.

Despite all this, party candidate Jiwan Gupta could secure only 20,323 votes, finishing third.

BJP district president Rajnish Dhiman attributed the relatively poor performance to two factors.

First, he claimed, was the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) led state government throwing all its weight in the bypoll. It is being speculated that the bypoll was of critical importance to the AAP as it plans to send party supremo Arvind Kejriwal to Rajya Sabha by freeing the seat occupied by Sanjeev Arora, who has now been elected the new MLA from Ludhiana West. Kejriwal is expected to be nominated to Rajya Sabha from Punjab as Arora resigns from his seat.

Second, the local BJP leader argued there was a difference in the nature of the elections. “The Lok Sabha poll were fought on national agenda with issues like the Ram Mandir at the heart of the campaign led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi,” he said.

He argued that it was those national issues and Narendra Modi as the PM which had driven the party’s domineering performance in the segment in the Lok Sabha elections.

The bypoll, he claimed, was “too local” in comparison to Lok Sabha to be comparable.

While accepting the people’s decision, BJP candidate Jiwan Gupta also took pot shots at the state government and alleged that it “abused” the administrative system to win the bypoll.

He pointed out that while at some polling booths the turnout was very low and at others clocked 65%-70% votes. “At one booth only 465 votes were cast, and 412 of these went to AAP,” he said, alleging discrepancy.