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Jalandhar West bypoll: BJP picks Angural, AAP bets on Mohinder Bhagat
The ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday announced their nominees for the bypoll to the Jalandhar West assembly seat in Punjab, fielding candidates who have switched sides in the recent past
Jalandhar : The ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Monday announced their nominees for the bypoll to the Jalandhar West assembly seat in Punjab, fielding candidates who have switched sides in the recent past.
While the AAP named Mohinder Bhagat, 64, as its candidate, the BJP fielded Sheetal Angural, 40, for the July 10 byelections.
The counting will take place on July 13. The by-election was necessitated following the resignation of Angural as an AAP legislator.
Angural had snapped ties with the ruling AAP in the state to join the saffron party on March 27 in the run-up to the Lok Sabha elections.
The seat fell vacant after Punjab assembly speaker Kultar Singh Sandhwan finally accepted Angural’s resignation on May 30.
In the 2022 assembly election, Angural had defeated then Congress candidate Sushil Kumar Rinku, 49, by 4,253 votes.
Angural started his political career with the BJP before he joined the AAP and successfully contested the 2022 assembly elections. Angural switched back to the BJP along with AAP’s former MP Sushil Kumar Rinku, who lost to former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi of the Congress by a record 1.75 lakh votes on June 4.
Rinku and Angural belong to Jalandhar West constituency and have been at loggerheads for most of their political careers. It was after Rinku joined the BJP that their relations improved and now they are often seen together.
After becoming MLA in 2022, Angural was the first to accuse the BJP of poaching leaders following which the Bhagwant Mann government termed it ‘Operation Lotus’. However, after joining the BJP, Angural accused the ruling AAP of forcing him to issue statements against the saffron party.
Angural wrote to the speaker on May 30 asking him to allow him to withdraw his resignation but Sandhwan rejected his plea.
On June 3, a day before the Lok Sabha election results, the office of the speaker informed Angural that his resignation had been accepted on May 30 under the anti-defection law. “Therefore, there is no window to withdraw the resignation at this stage,” it said.
The action against Angural was taken according to the 10th Schedule of the Constitution, also known as the anti-defection law. The law states that a member of a House, belonging to any political party, shall be disqualified if he voluntarily gives up membership of his party.
AAP nominee Mohinder Bhagat is a son of former cabinet minister and veteran BJP leader Chunni Lal Bhagat. He unsuccessfully contested the assembly elections from the constituency as a BJP candidate in 2022.
Bhagat has contested twice from Jalandhar West on the BJP ticket. He was chairman of the medium industries development board of Punjab from 2007 to 2011. He was also the BJP’s Punjab vice-president from 1998-2001 and 2017-20.
Bhagat joined the AAP in the run-up to the Jalandhar Lok Sabha by-election in May last year. He was the AAP’s Jalandhar West constituency in-charge after its MLA Angural joined the BJP and quit the assembly.
In 2022, Angural won on the AAP ticket with the margin of 4,253 votes from then Congress nominee Sushil Kumar Rinku. Mohinder Bhagat polled 33,486 votes, while Angural got 39,213 votes. Rinku polled 34,960 votes and the Shiromani Akali Dal-Bahujan Samaj Party candidate Anil Meena got only 4,125 votes.
The Jalandhar byelection has become a prestige battle for all parties, particularly the AAP and the BJP, as they are going all out to dominate in the SC-reserved constituency.
Though Channi had defeated Rinku to win the Jalandhar Lok Sabha constituency by a record margin of 1.75 lakh votes, the victory margin in Jalandhar West assembly segment was thin. In the BJP stronghold, Channi got a meagre lead of 1,557 votes over his rival.
